Unfinished Business
by KH2083
Summary: During the fight with the enemy that was described in the story "Jewel of the Sea" many dangerous being came to our world. Now the four of sailor soldiers: Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna i Hotaru must defeat them all over the planet. The story is continuation of "The Triad" and "The Jewel of the Sea" fanfiction.
1. Chapter 1

**Unfinished business**

World: Sailor Moon

Time: After the series end.

Characters: Outers Senshi: Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna and Hotaru

**Chapter 1**

Haruka woke up in the middle of the night. She was worried, as if she dreamt some nightmare which evaporated from her memory entirely after waking up. The room of the girl was plunged in the darkness of the moonless night and normal objects seemed to be something unrealistic, magic for eyes of the blonde who was on the border between the dream and the real world. The girl worked out, that Michiru hadn't slept by her. Perhaps she went to the bathroom, thought Haruka, but quickly became convinced that it hadn't been a truth, as soon as she touched bedding and stated that it was completely cold. Nobody lay by her, at least for a dozen last minutes. The girl decided to get up and check, where her friend went in the very heart of the night. She went up to the second floor of her house, noticing that a light was beaming from under the closed door of Michiru's studio. Creative passion overcame her, Haruka thought smiling. She went down to the bedroom deciding not to disturb the girl creating her new painting.

Michiru was sitting in the room full of images, linen, brushes, paints and other painting accessories. The semi darkness prevailed there, lightened up only by the bedside lamp standing close by. The green haired girl looked at the work coming into existence before her, image held in dark colors, mainly in green, bronze and black dyes. Her moves were kind of automatic, taught, steered from the outside by some unseen force. Hands of the girl were dirty from a paint, dye was also on her face and hair. She seemed not to notice it, she was completely submerged in the world of her own ideas and dreams. After some time, Michiru had to rest, to gain strength and the willingness to create. A high tower was on linen, the black structure looked in the black forest in the background. Above the building, the black-brown clouds gathered. After a brief lapse of the break, the girl got down to completing her work.

Haruka was the first one in the kitchen, she was ready to prepare the breakfast. The girl guessed that her friend had painted the entire night and went to the bathroom at the crack of dawn. She didn't see her, neither she didn't come into her studio, because as it turned out, she it was locked. When Haruka sat down at the table, in order to get down to eating sandwiches prepared by her own hands, Michiru entered the room. She had the green robe on, her hair was wet, but entirely cleaned from remains of the paint with which she got dirty at night.

"Hello". said Haruka.

"Hi." Michiru replied yawning.

"I'm so sleepy." She added. Haruka laughed.

"You should have sleep but instead you decided to paint all night long. I'm well rested."

"Leave me alone, I was possessed..." Neptune announced sitting down next to the friend. In the same moment, Hotaru dressed in the black shirt and black trousers entered the kitchen. She had a locket in the shape of the Ankh symbol hung on the neck.

"Hi, what we eat today?" She asked.

"Only a sandwiches, none of us wanted to do something else."

"Tough luck, I'll take what you have." Hotaru answered sitting down to table.

"How's your studies Hotaru?" Michiru asked.

"Okay, but it's irritating when others aren't able to understand the simplest things. If 16 years old girl is able to understand Maxwell's equations in the curved space-time, how somebody who is twenty or so doesn't understand the Gauss' law?"

"But don't forget that the one 16 years old girl is cheating!" Haruka cut in on a conversation.

"It's not true!"

"It's true. The ordinary student isn't assisted by the ancient magic and Sources of the universal knowledge."

"It's an art to find the appropriate current in the Sources and it requires a lot of work and sacrifice." Hotaru protested.

"I know Hotaru, I simply wanted to tease with you." The Blonde smiled.

"Ah, I would forget completely. Setsuna asked us to meet in a back garden today. She said that it is very important and regards events which you witnessed recently. You know, Michiru possesed by the necklace, opening the doors to other worlds, this Hekate whom you talked about... Setsuna said that the it turned into terrible mess."

"Ok, we'll meet with her, ok Michiru?

"Yes, we must . But I would prefer to paint in a silence."

"You have nights for such things." Haruka made fun of the friend again.

Four woman-warriors sat on wooden benches in the cherry orchard put behind the house. To three girls and tall woman with dark skin and long, dark green hair. She looked solemnly at her friends.

"The event with the jewel which Haruka found on the beach turned out to be much more serious than we supposed. Defeating the witch controlling Michiru wasn't the end of that matter but scarcely one pebble which called the avalanche."

"What do you mean by that?" Haruka asked.

"The woman, using the magic of the tower which she built then as well as her abilities and Michiru's power opened the gate to other realities. I thought that I had arrived in time and closed it quickly enough, but I was wrong. Different beings managed to escape from the doorway. They all were able to hide in various places of the world before I was able to react. We'll have to go hunting."

"What kind of beings you're talking about?" Michiru asked.

"I don't know exactly, one thing that is certain, that don't belong to our universe."

"Where did they hide?" Hotaru was interested.

"In many places of the world. Practically every continent became a hideout of some of fugitives. Four beings are in Americas, five in Europe, three in Asia, three in Africa and one in Australia. I will be able to get more accurate data, when I reach Gates."

" Should we notify Usagi and the rest of girls?" Haruka wanted to know what chances she had to meet with the girl with golden hair.

"No, these are opponents from the outside our dimension so they are our problem. Settle your matters and pack your things, because you are facing a long and difficult journey." Setsuna finished the meeting.

"And I thought that I would listen to lectures on the quantum theory of gravity at the university." Hotaru announced. Setsuna turned to the blonde and green haired girl.

"I'm suspecting that Hekate whom you mentioned, can also become a threat."

"What do you mean?"

"She cannot be the one she told she was." The woman replied coldly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The next night, Michiru had the inexplicable need of work on her painting again. When she became convinced that Haruka had fallen asleep with a calm, deep sleep, she cautiously got up and slipped from the bed. She quietly walked up the stairs to the upper floor of the building. Every footstep which she made was delicate and almost muffled so that none of her roommates could heard it. Michiru automatically closed the door of her studio behind herself and came up to the linen standing in the central part of the room. She fixed her eyes on the dark tower growing above the branches of trees of night forest. The building was dark and clouds afloat above it were sad looking, almost depressive. The girl wasn't able to remind why she had decided to paint something like that. She was surprised, because the image didn't belong to the most elaborate ones, it was simply straight and ill-considered, completely unlike any other works of its author. In spite of it, green haired woman knew that she had had to continue painting it, work on it each night, painting even the most trivial details of the strange landscape. She sat down by the linen, reaching for paints lying close by. As soon as the brush touched the texture of the picture, the girl went into a trance. No external stimuli and sounds from the neighboring street could reach her. She was focused on her work as if was it was the only thing worth attention in the entire universe.

Haruka had woken up again. She noticed that Michiru was not present by her side and guessed that her sleeplessness could have only one source. The blonde wasn't able to sleep, when she didn't smell the warmth of her girlfriend's body, could not touch her smooth skin and smell her hair. She could not relax, when her own breath wasn't synchronized with Michiru's breath. And maybe the cause was completely different? Perhaps Haruka sensed something which was supposed to happen? Perhaps something alerted her to a danger and ordered to be vigilant 24/7? Conversation with Setsuna made her uneasy very much, because the last meeting with the witch from other reality almost lead to Michiru's loss. This time there were more beings threatening her and her beloved and in addition, she knew nothing about them. She planned that as soon as Setsuna establishes places of their hiding, she would visit all of them and get even with fugitives herself in order not to expose the angel with emerald hair unnecessarily. She didn't also want Hotaru to be drawn into the war again but she didn't know, whether she had worried more about her adopted daughter or about the world in which Sailor Saturn had to wake up again.

Hotaru also could not fall asleep that night. She was sitting on the armchair standing near the slightly opened window in the corner of her small room. She looked at the silhouette of the city, plunged into the darkness, but not asleep, full of colorful lights. She sensed the strange presence in the metropolis, as she came across some strange intelligentsia, resembling nothing she knew. She was sure that it was one of beings which Setsuna told her about. Strange appearance permeating the night air, living in flashing red diodes on some tower of mobile phone communications, reaching ears of the black-haired girl in horns of dissatisfied drivers. Something united with the city and awaited as a predator thinking how to hunt his victim down. Hotaru felt like going to her own hunts and feel the energy which gave her Sailor Saturn's power, to hold the most powerful weapon in the Universe in her hand. These thoughts horrified her, she was afraid of what could happen if the power with which she was born took control of her body and soul entirely. Inconceivable Sailor Saturn's power was completely different than the ones of the rest of girls. She was overfilled with darkness, cold and death. Hotaru knew very well, because her intelligence and her understanding of basic truths ruling the reality increased with every consecutive day, that great temptation had been connected with such a power, power being able to corrupt even the purest heart. She wanted to fill her mind with thoughts about something else, the music swimming from headphones, or books written in difficult language of higher mathematics. A trip abroad will certainly let her gather more knowledge and experience, she thought smiling to herself.

Setsuna didn't spend the night with her friends. Instead of it she stood opposite the huge doorway, being a symbolic representation of the portal through time and space, surrounded by impenetrable fogs in the very heart of the place without the passage of time. Her eyes watched whirling colors, going on and on behind the opened gate, while her mouth whispered lines of some spell taught a long time ago. Her mind, formed by eons of experience, was able to catch all information from seemingly chaotic and pointless movement of flashing colors in the place where different space-time continua crossed each other. Her scepter lighted emptiness with glitter reacting to changes of colors behind the gate, collecting information needed for finding fugitives from other dimensions. At some point, she knew that one of them had escaped in Tokyo. He was hiding between neon lights of pleasure districts and long tunnels of the underground. His mind was too strange for the woman to be able to locate him exactly, but she got to know the energy pattern which accompanied his every demonstration. What's this? She thought. What place something so different from her could came from? She decided to come back. Staying by the space-time doorway exhausted her more than at any time earlier, family she created together with other Sailor Senshi was something the most precious for her from many, many years.

Hiroshi Tanaka could not fall asleep also. He spent the night in his office, working on the architectural design. All his friends left the work a long time ago, coming back to wives, mothers, children, lovers, the calm family life or the play in night clubs. Hiroshi was alone, sitting before the computer and plans of houses. He was dissatisfied with himself, with what he created, with all that took every hour of his work in a few last weeks. Lack of a symmetry, lack of an order, lack of a harmony - it was the only sentence which came to his mind when he looked at lines of the virtual drawing board in the program for the design of the civil engineering structures. At some point he moved away from the monitor full of fury, turning towards printed projects of his friends from the company. Their visions didn't fit with his own, a symmetry, an order, a harmony were missing in all of them, he thought that they had been created with a hand of an amateur rather than the professional in one's field. He took one of them and ruffled clenching his teeth with an anger. He went to the window in order to cool down. He saw neon lights being mirrored in it, light lines arranged into even geometric patterns.

"I crave for the symmetry, the harmony and the order." He heard in his head.

"I crave for the symmetry, the harmony and the order." He repeated aloud.

In the following day, all four girls were ready to start the search of strange beings from other reality. They gathered in the living room of their house in order to hear from Setsuna what she had managed to learn by the Gates. Haruka noticed that Michiru had been sleepier and more tired out than the day before, she had a pale complexion and eyes with dark circles around them. She knew that she would have to bring up the subject of sleepless nights, but she decided to wait for the better opportunity for private conversation.

"The first of the beings is here, in Tokyo. It is hiding in corners of the city. I can say nothing more about it. I don't know who or what it is, because its mind is too strange and I can't even try to establish contact with it."

"Last night I also felt it." Hotaru butted in.

"Really?" Setsuna asked.

"Yes, when I looked at the night city, I felt like something living in the city looked at me. Something strange, worrying, something which was hidden for weeks, just to leave now to the surface and try to get victims. Sailor Saturn living inside me interpreted this presence as the challenge for her, she wanted to fight, to hunt... fortunately I managed to control these temptations."

"You did the right thing... it isn't wise to attack the opponent about which nothing is known." Haruka said approaching her adopted daughter.

"Where are we supposed to start the search from?" Michiru asked.

"We must look around the city. Maybe thanks to that, I will be able to locate this thing more precisely Sailor Pluto announced.

"I will also try to feel it one more time." Hotaru added. All women decided to finish the conversation and do some work. Going out, Haruka stopped her green haired friend.

"Are you sure that you're feeling well?" She asked.

"I'm fine, why are you asking?" Michiru answered looking into her blue eyes.

" I observed you all the time in the morning. You almost fall asleep at the meeting."

"I am sleepy. Apart from that I'm ok, do you believe me?"

"You worked late at night again?" Haruka became nervous.

"Leave me alone. I'll drink a coffee somewhere in the city and I'll feel better, ok?" Michiru tried to leave, but the blonde stopped her.

"Michiru. We don't know what we're dealing with. You must be in excellent form, we cannot let ourselves a moment of weakness. Not now."

"You don't have to remind me of it! And now let me leave, because another moment and we will quarrel. You wouldn't like to start the day this way, right?" Michiru replied coldly taking Haruka's hand from her shoulder. Uranus let her go out and join the rest of thought that perhaps she had been overprotective and should not torment Michiru with her questions. All Sailor Senshi got into Haruka's car in and moved in the direction of the city's centre. After a dozen minutes of travelling across the most important streets, Setsuna announced that she had managed to sense the strange presence.

"Haruka, disturbances in the space-time... are here, very pronounced."

"Here? Must I to stop?" The blonde was surprised.

"No... they are everywhere, stretching out along streets, climbing to floors of skyscrapers and coming into the underground interiors.

"I don't quite understand what you mean. If this being is hiding somewhere, let us find it, let us chase it away to its own world and let us get back home. Michiru wanted to drink the coffee." Haruka announced smiling to green haired woman.

"Think about the mission now." Neptune said looking at the plane flying high above the horizon.

"No... it is not here." Setsuna said.

"Make up your mind. I'm already going the same district around the second time."

"Changes in the space-time are clearly visible. But they're only an echo, residuum of what was, a trail blazed by this being which walked here a few days ago, perhaps even in yesterday's night."

"The same as the track left by the snail. It is not in the surrounding anymore, but its route is clearly marked." Hotaru cut in on the conversation.

"Thanks for the vivid analogy. And do you feel something, Hotaru?"

"No... I don't have such abilities as you... and at night, it probably wanted to get in touch with me. Therefore it let me feel itself." The black-haired girl replied. At some point, Setsuna clearly cheered up, pointing at the office block standing on one of more crowded streets.

"Yes, tangling the space-time continuum is there. As if some whirlpool went that way."

"Yeah, we have our lost kitten. " Haruka smiled.

"Not necessarily. It is only a trail again, but much stranger than the rest. Stop somewhere here." Setsuna instructed her friend. Soon, all four senshi were in the front of the building. Hotaru approached the entry in order to read plates hanging by the door. Haruka join her.

"What is there Hotaru?"

"All sort of companies. Mainly architectural and design studios."

"I'll come in and I'll look around. Michiru, do you want to go with me?" Pluto asked her green haired friend.

"Yes." Michiru replied.

"And what about us?"

"You and Hotaru will walk in the surroundings. We are much better dressed in order to mix between employees of the company." Setsuna announced.

"What did you want to say?" Hotaru asked taking the Ankh symbol hanging on her neck. The blonde laid her hand on her shoulder.

"Let us walk. When we split we'll be able to check the area more quickly and more efficiently."

"You're right."

Haruka togehter with her adopted daughter got around the building an entered a small side street on its backs. Hotaru stopped, raised her eyes overhead, stopping on neon light hanged on the wall of the bar. Pupils in her eyes widened and she felt the strange concern again, the same as in the previous night. Uranus was surprised at her friend's behavior. She also looked at the neon light nut she noticed nothing strange in it.

"What can you see there? Ordinary pipes filled up with gas. It's shining, because probably the owner forgot to turn it off closing premises after the night. He cannot save the energy."

"No. Watch it more precisely."

"Yes?"

"It's strange. What would it is supposed to advertise in such a place?"

Haruka looked at the object once again. The neon light which hung above her head had a quite strange shape, was compound of fragments of triangles overlapping one another. It was marked by the extraordinary symmetry and the simplicity of the form. It looked like a flower compound of the light frozen in glass tubes.

"I feel that this shape is trying to tell me something." Hotaru whispered can't move her sight away from the light sculpture.

Michiru and Setsuna walked along the corridor inside the building. The place was very bright and clean, flowerpots with neat flowers stood in a few places. All sorts of people, most well dressed in suits walked around, everyone in a hurry, having time for nothing apart from the work.

"Second floor." The woman with dark skin said to her companion stopping her and pointing in the direction of the side passage, going straight to the stairwell. As it turned out, offices of a few companies were located upstairs. Following wrinkles in the space-time, visible only for her eyes, the woman stopped by the glazed door above which the logo of the company well known in Tokyo, making money on the house design, could was seen.

"Michiru, I will entertain them with conversation and you look around. Try to use your mirror, perhaps you will see something unusual."

"Ok." The green haired girl said.

"How can I help you?" The employee of the company in glasses asked as soon as she noticed two women and immediately came up to them.

"I... we... we want to build a house. We would like to talk about the design. I really want to discuss a few details before I pay any money." Setsuna replied.

"Of course, please come to the office. You can see our previous projects."

"Thank you."

"Excuse me, I would like to use the toilet first." Michiru interrupted the conversation.

"Of course. Please walk along the corridor until the end. Certainly you'll find it there." The woman said. Neptune came out to the corridor, looked all around and a moment later she started inspecting the place. She moved a few steps, then stopped behind the palm growing from the large flowerpot. The time for using the remarkable properties of its mirror came. Unfortunately, she saw only her own reflection on its surface. The girl moved again and then someone's very loud conversation, on the edge of becoming a quarrel, came up to her ears,. Michiru stood up by the wall, pretending that she became interested in some blueprints of the tower block hanging on the wall. She started listening closely to words of the conversation. Some woman spoke in a raised vote, almost screamed, somebody else tried to calm her.

"What has he done! What is the meaning of all of this!"

"Take it easy. There must be some explanation, I'm trying to get in touch with him, but he isn't answering the phone."

"So much work was wasted! He tear it all down! Everything that I worked on entire weeks. I will kill this bastard as soon as shows his kisser here! What is this supposed to be? What has he draw here?"

"This one seems very interesting to me..."

"Are you siding with him? How can you!"

Michiru came into the room spotting talking persons as well as the disarray which ruled in the office. Blueprints hanging on walls were ruffled, some of them were on the floor. In a few places, sheets with pictures were attached showing diverse geometrical forms, all disturbingly symmetrical. The girl took the mirror out, she started looking at it simultaneously moving closer to the inside of the study. At some point, she noticed some shape on its surface. A few straight lines crossing at the angle of 45 degrees, forming something like mosaic. Lines were bright, radiated their own lighting rather than light of lamps reflected from the mirror. Eyes of green haired women quickly found the place, whose image she had seen. As it turned out, it was a window and behind it neon light which was also spotted by Hotaru. The man noticed the stranger.

"What are you doing here?" He asked not very politely.

"I... I searched for the toilet. But I got lost."

"Eh, come back to the corridor. It is hard not to notice the door of the bathroom from there."

"Do you think that this neon light is a fugitive?" Haruka asked Hotaru, joking.

"No. But it is a track which it left. I'm sure about it." The girl answered seriously.

"In that night, when it called me through city lights."

"Is this a warning for us, and maybe the invitation to the duel?" The blonde continued.

"No. It cannot have a clue about us. I think that it left a symbol of the victory."

"Victories."

"Yes. It couldn't control my mind, but it won over somebody else, someone much weaker than me. And I think that it was its pass to this world."

Hotaru looked at Uranus with her big violet eyes. She was dead serious.

"Let us walk ahead of the building. We'll see Michiru and Setsuna." Haruka suggested to loosen the tense atmosphere.

After the visit in the office block, four women went to the café in order to talk about what they had learnt. Haruka chose place which she had repeatedly visited with Michiru, because she remembered very well how her friend had liked to drink the coffee there. The room wasn't unduly crowded, apart from the older man sitting at the corner, probably being some kind of regular customer, there were no other guests.

"I heard that you are going to buy us a new house." Haruka said.

"Leave me alone. I didn't know what to talk to this woman about. Next time you will occupy somebody with a conversation." Setsuna replied.

"If she is pretty, I'll do it with a pleasure." Haruka announced smiling. She looked at her green haired girl, but noticed that she hadn't reacted to her words. Her mind was somewhere else.

"We have some clue. We found the neon light which seemed to Hotaru very unusual. I could see nothing strange there, but if Hotaru's intuition suggested something... I'm taking her word for that."

"Hotaru was right. I also noticed it. It was visible through one of windows and when I looked at its reflection in the mirror, I thought that I had seen something completely different for a moment. It seemed to radiate with some supernatural brilliance."

"Hotaru, how did you describe it? Sign of victory?"

"Yes. I don't know how I know about it, don't ask me, but I'm almost sure that this being tried to get in touch with me at the night. It wanted to use me for something, but it failed. Then it found somebody else. I had a strange feeling, kind of connections with some person living somewhere in Tokyo, just for a fraction of a second. I don't have a clue who he was, but I'm sure that we were joined in minds. As if it jumped from mind to mind, perhaps in a completely random way. And then, through I saw a brief lapse of colorful light lines."

"The same one as I in the mirror." Michiru butted in.

"We're almost sure that this bizarre neon light is having some connection with our opponent. Firstly, turbulence of the space-time continuum took me to that district and it was almost like the multidimensional whirlpool by the building. The centre of the whirlpool came out in the small street behind the office block."

"Yes, where we found the neon light." Haruka said.

"And I checked the place with Michiru on the level of the second floor."

"It is hanging at the second floor level." Hotaru interjected.

"I was in the room from which it was visible. My mirror showed me exactly Hotaru had seen. There is no need talk anymore." Michiru recapitulated the conversation.

"Let's destroy the neon light and go back home." Haruka offered.

"It is not so simple! You didn't listen to me!" Hotaru interrupted her.

"It's only a sign. Seal on our city. Track of the snail, do you remember? The being is not there anymore!"

"Did you say that you had sensed someone's presence at the night?" Neptune asked avidly.

"Yes. I don't know who he was, but I'm sure it was some man." Saturn answered.

"I observed something interesting in that company. One of employees didn't come to work, he isn't answering the calls. Some girl was furious at him, because he destroyed all her works. Perhaps he has some connection with our mysterious guest."

"Yeah well... but how will we find this guy. They won't give the address of the employee to somebody from the street." Haruka was very skeptical.

"But I already took care of everything. I read plates hanging by the door. Only one man works in the room: Hiroshi Tanaka." Michiru smiled, pleased with herself.

"And how are you going to track him down in the large Tokyo?" Haruka asked.

"You'll track him down. There'll be a break for dinner in the company soon. You'll find that girl, talk with her and try to learn where he lives. I'll show her you as soon as we get there."

"Ok." The blonde smiled.

"Don't only be envious later." She added.

"Don't you worry. I'll be in the vicinity. You'll be under the surveillance all the time."

"And what about us?" Hotaru asked.

"We'll get back home and we'll be waiting for news from girls. I need your help in handling data from the Doorway. We must establish, where remaining fugitives from other worlds are."

Haruka and Michiru entered the bar which was used by employees of the skyscraper with the architectural company. An hour of the lunch approached so there was a lot of people coming down. Michiru noticed the black-haired woman, whose projects were destroyed by wanted Hiroshi Tanaka.

"She's there, go now." Green haired girl instructed her friend.

"Ok." Haruka replied going toward the worker of the company. She quickly bought some food and came up to girl's table.

"Can I sit down?" She asked.

"It's free. Please yourself." The girl answered coldly coming back to eating her food. The blonde sat down opposite her. She pretended that she had also been interested in eating only but at the same time she looked at her. The woman noticed it and it irritated her very much.

"Why are you looking at me? Am I dirty or what?" She asked nervously.

"Why are you reacting with anger? I want only to eat my lunch with the nice company."

"Listen, I'm not in the best mood today, do you understand? You're unlucky. I had a terrible day and I don't feel like talking with anybody. And definitely I don't feel like getting to know somebody new. Who are you? I could never see you here before."

"Haruka Tenou, I work on the fifth floor. I'm new here and we most probably haven't had a chance to meet yet."

"Kotone. Sorry for the outburst... after all you don't have anything to do with it."

"I noticed that you were very angry about something. I don't want to butt in, but perhaps I can help you somehow?"

"I don't think so. I have a trouble at work, lots of trouble. I don't feel like putting around about it to every person I come across by a chance."

"I understand. Can you tell me where you are working?"

"On the second floor. I'm a designer in the Cityscape company." Kotone calmed down, but it was apparent that the Haruka's presence disturbed her.

"Cityscape... it's where my friend works, Hiroshi Tanaka."

Kotone stopped eating the food. She struck the table with her fist and clenched her teeth.

"Did something happen?" Haruka asked, but in her heart of hearts she was glad that her provocation had worked.

"Probably I will have to talk with you."

"Why?"

"Your pal destroyed long weeks of my hard work. He tore my prints up, erased files with projects, replaced them with some geometrical abstractions. Was he always like this or did something happened to him?"

"Have he really done something like that? I would never expect it. But I haven't seen him for years, I don't even know what is going on with him. Did you talk to him, have you tried to ask why he did it?"

"No! How would I be supposed to talk with him, if he didn't come to work and completely dissociated himself from the entire world? Can you believe?"

"I would like to see him. Perhaps I'll try to ask him about you?"

"Do please yourself. It's your pal. I'll be happy, if I never see his face again. Unless at the court."

"I don't know where he lives. As I recalled, I haven't seen him for ages."

"Come with me upstairs, I'll give you his address. Don't hope that he'll invite you, because as I said earlier, there is no contact with him. Perhaps he has already escaped from the city after what he has done."

"Maybe. But I'll try to talk to him. And I promise you that I'll try to learn why he did such a vileness."

Hiroshi Tanaka didn't get out of his room. He shut up there after the night return from the work, he destroyed his mobile phone and blocked the door so that his partner with whom he lived wasn't able to interrupt anything he had intended to do. The girl stood opposite the room, trying to impel him to leave or at least clarify reasons for his strange behavior, but without any success. Hiroshi was furious. He turned the lights out and slid all blinds back so that complete darkness surrounded him. Every word said by the young woman irritated him, she wanted her to become silent, leave him alone and let him be with his thoughts only. His mind was filled by desire for the harmony, the symmetry and the order which was missing in chaotic behavior of his partner. He was ready to open the door and to hush her up forever, he refrained himself from such a decision with an effort. When he closed his eyes, he could see colorful lines crossing with each other in two, three or more spatial dimensions. Colors changed with the high speed whispering their message about the harmony, the symmetry and the order.

"I crave for the harmony, the symmetry and the order." The voice penetrating every cell of his body said.

"I crave for the harmony, the symmetry and the order." Hiroshi whispered.

"Hiroshi? Did you say something?" The girl asked him putting the ear to the door in order to hear his voice better. tears appeared in her eyes.

"Aiko, leave me alone." The man announced much louder.

"Hiroshi, what's the problem? Talk with me, I want to help you!"

"Go away! Immediately! Escape from here!" The man was irritated.

Aiko moved away from the door. She didn't know what to do farther, she was worried by the condition of her lover even more than before. She thought that Hiroshi had gone mad from the overwork, that the company had entirely destroyed his personality. She tried to talk with him for the last time.

" Hiroshi, talk with me. Together, we will certainly manage to solve your problem."

The man didn't withstand it. He moved the cupboard obstructing the door away with sudden move, switched the lock on and came into the living room, right at Aiko.

"You can't understand what I'm saying? I ordered you to go away from here."

The girl paled. Tears started sailing across her cheek.

"Why?" She said and her voice cracked.

"Because I crave for the harmony, the symmetry and the order and you're breaking everything with your presence!" He screamed straight into her face. Aiko turned around and a moment later she ran out of the flat not looking back. Last view she remembered was the dark room behind the back of her boyfriend. Cold, immaculately clean room deprived of any appliances or furniture. How did Hiroshi manage to remove everything? Where did he throw everything away? She wasn't able to understand it. Strange geometrical shapes cutting across the space, trying to hurt her mind and to overcome her the same as the Hiroshi were horrible. The girl didn't know whether they had been real or she had only seen because of the great fear she felt. She didn't want to come back and check.

Haruka and Michiru stood in the front of the house in which Hiroshi Tanaka lived according to new Haruka's friend, Kotone. Both girls noticed simultaneously the young girl running from the entry to the building. She was horrified and crying. Not looking at people walking along the street, she disappeared behind one of office blocks.

"Do you think that she got scared of our fugitive?" Haruka asked.

"Probabl. We cannot wait any longer, we must enter there and fight with him." Michiru announced.

"Won't we wait for Setsuna and Hotaru?"

"I notified them. They will join us as soon as they can. We must count on each other now."

"Good. We're going."

Girls entered the building and very quickly found a flat belonging to Tanaks. The door opened wide, inviting everyone who felt like crossing thresholds of the luxury apartment, explicitly showed the target of the mission of woman-warriors. Michiru looked at the surface of her mirror.

"Colorful lines... are everywhere... they are changing their configuration in the space... " She said looking at the truth hiding in that place.

"Be careful Michiru... perhaps we should transform?" The blonde was anxious, because the quietness of the place horrified her. Girls reached darkened room and after a moment of thought they cautiously crossed its threshold. They noticed Hiroshi standing at the very centre of the room. The man looked at his own feet, he didn't stop even when he when sensed that he had had a new company.

"Who you are? How did you find me? " He asked with undertone.

"Are you Hiroshi Tanaka?" Michiru asked.

"You are in a danger." Haruka added. Hiroshi clenched fists.

"Go away! Immediately! You're disturbing the harmony of this place!" He shouted. Girls looked at each other and Neptune additionally gazed at her mirror. As it turned out, the place was full of colorful lines merging into geometric figures. Unlike the previous visions, this time lines didn't change their color or the configuration, they were frozen in time like glass pipes of street neon lights. Uranus and Neptune waited for the man next step in the silence. When Hiroshi guessed that he could not get rid of them so easily as his fiancée, he decided to change tactics of his actions. He was cognizant that the only way for his perfect harmony, which he wanted so much, to return was to give the stranger, living with him a few hours, a permission to take control of his body. The man moved aside into the shadow of the room and some shapes started materializing behind his back. At first, they were only outlines, cutting darkness, barely noticeable for the eye of the ordinary mortal, but soon they turned into well visible objects, large enough to fill the empty room up. Abstract geometrical shapes with a perfect symmetry, Platonic solids folded entirely from regular polygons, fragments of the three-dimensional space appeared over Hiroshi's head. They radiated music, clean, melodiously sounding linear combinations of sine waves with different frequencies. Everyone hearing their specific melody had a feeling of communing with the heavenly music of cosmic spheres.

"What's this?" Michiru asked rhetorically.

"I don't know, but we must quickly tell it that is posing a threat to this man."

"I crave for the harmony, the symmetry and the order." Hiroshi said and geometric figures surrounding him started growing and approaching girls.

"It's probably already too late for the conversation." Neptune announced.

"We'll have to convince it by a force!" Uranus added.

Unfortunately, girls didn't have time to transform or to answer with her spells. Surfaces of solids came near to them with the exponential growing speed and soon they claimed both women. Haruka and Michiru were blinded by a glitter coming from nowhere. When they regained the sight it turned out that they were moved to the completely different place. They stood on perfectly flat surface and whirling galaxies arranged in the shape of colorful fractals stretched above them. The place was beautiful and at the same time horrifying. Using the moment of peace, women transformed into Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune. After a few minutes of walking all over the strange land, woman-warriors worked out that they were in the middle of large emptiness and infinite space, going on and on in all directions surrounded them.

"Where are we?" Michiru asked the question to which she didn't expect the rational reply again.

"Why did I pick this bloody necklace up to." Haruka clenched fists being seized by an anger.

Hotaru and Setsuna found Hiroshi's house. They were in a hurry, since loss of the contact with Sailor Uranus and Netpune could herald only and exclusively a trouble. The intuition suggested that the fight was waiting for them, therefore they decided to transform. When they crossed the threshold of the dark room, it turned out that they had arrived too late. Both looked at the neon light hung on the wall, the glass flower radiating with internal brilliance, identical with the one found by Hotaru a few hours earlier.

"It left its sign for us again." Hotaru announced.

"Entanglement of the space-time continuum is as large here as in the previous place." Setsuna added.

"What happened here?" The black-haired girl looked around.

"There is no furniture, no appliances... it is abnormal in the inhabited place."

"Where are Haruka and Michiru?" Setsuna stopped Sailor Saturn's observations.

"I'm afraid that anywhere they are, this seal isolates us from them." the girl pointed at the shining geometric pattern which seemed to laugh at the ignorance and helplessness of women regarding themselves as defenders of the planet.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Sailor Pluto and Sailor Saturn looked at the fancifully bent colourful neon light hanging on the wall in a place, in which there were their friends a few minutes earlier. Unfortunately, Haruka and Michiru disappeared, just like a strange immaterial presence felt by Hotaru. At one point, Hiroshi entered in the darkened room. He was surprised seeing two women.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? He asked.

Saturn and Pluto turned around, instinctively assuming a defensive position.

"This place is dangerous. You should not stay here." Setsuna announced.

"What are you talking you about? It's my home!" The man was indignant. He looked at the glass flower shimmering on the wall behind the back of two woman-warriors. Hiroshi was struck dumb, and his mind was ovelflown with an avalanche of thoughts and memories from last few days. Led by an instinct or the will of the being who managed to take over the control of him again, he prepared for an escape.

"We must catch him! He had a contact with our stranger! Perhaps he knows about it something more." Sailor Pluto announced.

"Maybe he will take us to the girls!" Hotaru added.

Hiroshi was running along streets of the city plunged in the blackness of the night. He was horrified with voices and images turning up at his head, put in front of his mental eyesight with the speed far greater than the view of the real world appearing in front of his physical eyes. He was surrounded by lights of street lamps and neon lights of a shopping centre, sound of hundreds of car engines merging into one great monotonous noise, omnipresent crossing of straight lines marking border of residential and public spaces, planes separating the municipal space from the interior of buildings full of odd shapes, sounds and smells. Hiroshi didn't know, which sensations were delivered by his own senses, and which he experienced only because he was connected with a strange intelligence trying to understand the world surrounding it. The man looked ran to remote alley in the dark industrial district. He saw that he still had been tracked. A tall woman ran nehind him, holding something in the hand, and he could not see her face in the darkness. Hiroshi waited until the girl approached him,then he took one of dustbins into both hands and threw it at the assailant. Setsuna protected herself from hit of metal and dirt with her talisman, but the force of the crash threw her to knees. Hotaru ran up to the friend.

"Setsuna, is everything all right?" She asked.

"Yes. Chase him or else he'll escape! I'll catch up with you!"

"Right." Saturn ran after the man. Hiroshi was in a dirty backstreet between two low-rise warehouses, and a fence blocked his escape route.

"Damn it!" When Hotaru was close, Hiroshi became very nervous. He hit an old plate hanging on the fence.

"Who are you! Leave me alone! What do you want from me?!" He screamed looking at Sailor Saturn. He picked up a brick lying in the vicinity and tried to strike Hotaru's head. The girl put the blade of Silence Glaive to his neck.

"Do not even try. We want to help you." Seeing the sharp weapon, Hiroshi resigned from the intention of the fight and dropped the brick at the pavement.

"Help me?" He asked with a strange voice. When Saturn lowered the Glaive, the man felt safe again and decided to escape. He pushed the girl. He didn't manage to move far, because Sailor Pluto effectively blocked his route.

"As my friend said. We want to help you. Therefore please don't fight with us. We must talk." Hiroshi looked at two woman-warriors with a great fear. Chaotic visions of daily life in Tokyo turned up at his head again. He clutched the head and fell down on his knees. Setsuna approached him.

"We must talk, but not here. We will find some calm place. Can you go?"

"Yes..." The man replied getting up.

Sailor Senshi and Hiroshi reached the urban park. The man sat down on the bench nearby a man-made lake in which the wan light of the nearby lamp post was reflected. He was angry, but fear of the weapon held by Saturn effectively discouraged him from an escape attempt.

"Who are you?" He asked after a moment of silence.

"We want to help you. Please tell us what happened in your flat. Why did you escape? What did you see?" Setsuna asked.

"I... I didn't want it to happen again. I didn't want something to overcame me again."

"What are you talking about?"

"On the wall... a glass flower. I saw the same one the first time when this thing entred my head."

"Are you talking about the flower which is on the wall opposite the building in which you work?" Hotaru asked.

"Yes... how do you know about it?"

"I said that we wanted to help you. We are looking for the being which was in contact with you. Please tell us what exactly happened, when you saw the glass flower for the first time." Setsuna continued.

"I was at work... I was working late on the project, in late hours as usual. At some point I looked out of the window in order to rest from the computer screen and then... I felt that my thoughts had stopped being mine... something tried to enter my body and control me from the inside. Suddenly my thoughts were attacked by thousands of images and sounds. I saw worlds, distant worlds, full of the structures which I have never seen before... crystal glass towers, cities growing out of walls of kilometres high mountains, cities with houses hung on the web hanging above the chasm, cities afloat on the ocean.  
>I felt my mind jumping in space and time... it was trying to show something to me... tell me... when<br>I could think, I immediately came back to the work. But I could not look at my own designs of buildings... not after I have seen all of that. I destroyed all my projects, I tore them into shreds...  
>I destroyed also projects of my friends. I craved for perfection, but what was before me really disgustsed me. At some point, I looked out of the window and I noticed a colourful neon light shimmering in the darkness in the shape of a flower. I escaped from my work and I don't know what was later, because from then all the way to our meeting I acted like on an autopilot. I feel that soon I will lose my mind again. Can you help me?"<p>

Hiroshi rose from the bench, turning towards Hotaru. The girl was silent, so the man asked louder.

"Will you help me! You said you would help me, for Christ's sake!"

Michiru heard voices coming from the inside of her mind, and her senses were attacked with an avalanche of intense experiences. The girl mutely fixed her eyes on patterns appearing only in front of her eyes and listened closely to sounds intended only for her ears. Haruka was talking to her, but her mind didn't accept impulses from the outside world different than the ones which the Being gave her. Uranus observed the girl losing a contact with the reality and was worried about her. Fractal patterns in the sky whirled slowly, replicated themselves creating arrangements more and more complicated, seeming to point at the place exactly over green haired woman. Michiru could see patterns changing with a huge speed, colours, shapes, geometrical symbols, multidimensional objects penetrating through three-dimensional reality comprehended by the brain of the young woman. Also, sounds came along with visual impressions, strange, supernatural, deprived of a rhythm, bringing contradictory experiences, arousing anxiety, but simultaneously calming other aspect of the girl's awareness, sounds existing in ranges of wavelengths normally inaudible, but perceptible subconsciously by the young artist lost in a strange world.

"Michiru! What is happening?!" Haruka screamed seeing her friend losing the contact with the reality. Fractal patterns changed colours, twinkled with changeable frequency, trying to accommodate themselves to the frequency of the human awarenesses in order to transfer this awareness to its own higher state of experience. The blonde tried to touch green haired women, but, at the same moment, she felt pain as if she was hit with a lightning. She was pushed back and fell down on the smooth surface constituting the unusual form of a ground. Michiru was cut from the stream of different consciousness and could experience the world with her own senses again. She fell down on her knees being pleased by the return to her reality and at the same time she felt great sadness, longing to the higher condition of the awareness which was given to her by the strange essence only for a moment.

"Michiru!" Haruka ran up to the girl in spite of the pain she felt after the contact with the sing of dissatisfaction of the fractal dimension's owner.

"What happened?"

"He... whatever he is... tried to communicate with me. He tried to understand whom I am." Michiru replied.

"We must be vigilant. He imprisoned us in this nightmare and now he is also trying to take control over our thoughts. Damn it! I'm feeling so helpless! How am I supposed to struggle with something that I can't even see!"

"Haruka... the physical strength won't help us this time. We must find other way to get out of here. We will start by making contact with him."

"What? Do you want to give up without a fight?"

"No. I want to communicate with this being and perhaps to explain him, that he is doing us harm by keeping us prisoner in this space. We cannot assume that the being is evil. After all if it wanted to do something to us we wouldn't have any chance."

"I won't let you risk. What if you're wrong? What if this being encourage you to open the mind, because he wants to take control over you? I won't let him!"

"We're trying to find exit from here and we're still going round in circles. We don't know even where we're and if it's a place in which any laws of physics rule apart from the will of the intelligence controlling it. The attempt to establish contact was the first thing which happened to us since we were brought here. You broke the connection and perhaps because of that the being became distrustful. Please, let me try to talk with him one more time."

"Why did he choose only you?"

"Because you're full of evil thoughts directed at him. And I'm a musician, an artist... perhaps he found something in my head which he needed. As in this architect..."

"Perhaps you should try to use the mirror?"

"I tried and it turned out to be completely meaningless in this place. As your talisman and our powers of Sailor Senshi."

"Ok. Perhaps your idea is our only chance."

Michiru walked to the place, where she established a contact with the being from the other world a few minutes before. She closed her eyes, quietened the mind, simultaneously evoking the music written by herself and visions of landscapes which she painted or intended to paint at one time, but never put them on linen. Surrounding reacted to the girl. Fractal patterns in the sky started gathering and coming closer to the surface, concentrating above the head of the girl. Michiru smiled, and tears started to flow from under her eyelids. Multicoloured patterns appeared from nowhere and began the dance around the body of green haired women. Haruka observed the entire incident with a fear and anger directed at herself, because she had let Michiru do something so dangerous.

Hiroshi caught Sailor Saturn's arms. The girl didn't manage to react. The man fixed his eyes on her violet eyes.

"I can see... I can see who you really are!" He said.

"Leave her alone!" Setsuna shouted. Hiroshi didn't react to her words.

"Don't fight with me... let me see what I really need... let me see what is hidden on the other side of your mind..." The black-haired man didn't stop fixing his eyes on Hotaru's eyes, but he actually looked at abstract images handed over to him by the strange being after a direct contact with the Sailor Saturn's mind.

"Eternal silence, nothingness... real nothingness from which we will be able to build perfectly symmetrical world... singular initial point..." He said, not understanding the sense of visuals shown to him. Hotaru could not move, or defend herself against the attack by the man. The strange mind took control of her and its oddity disturbed the functioning of the girl's nervous system.

"Leave her alone! I said something to you!" Sailor Pluto was more nervous. Hiroshi didn't react again.

"I warned you!" Setsuna announced, seeing that Hotaru was in a real danger.

"Dead Scream!" The woman used offensive spell against the man. She directed it at the pavement directly under his feet. The ball of the energy deafened him, simultaneously knocking him over on the back. Setsuna ran up to the friend.

"Hotaru, are you OK?" She asked.

"No... I still feel the presence... of something... I must calm down..." Saturn replied looking very befuddled. In the same time, Hiroshi got up from the pavement. He looked at women with a fear.

"No, no, no... I can't stand it anymore! Let these images finally end! Let him leave me alone!" He screamed crying.

"I understand nothing!" He added bolting.

"Damn it!" Pluto looked at the escaping man.

"Follow him! I'll be better." Hotaru announced sitting on the stone wall standing nearby. Hiroshi proceeded through the streets and, after a moment, he was on a bridge. He was even more terrified and disorientated than a few seconds before. Sailor Pluto was closer.

"I don't want to see it! Never again!" The man screamed climbing on the metal barrier of the bridge.

"Don't do it!" Setsuna tried to stop him seeing what he had wanted to do. It was too late. Hiroshi lost balance and fell off the bridge to the cold water plunged in the darkness. Pluto knew that he could not survive the fall from that height, but she was looking at the darkness, trying to notice signs of life of the man. Hotaru appeared on the bridge.

"He is dead. He died before he hit water. His body wasn't able to manage with a direct contact with this being. We are too different..." The girl announced coming up to the friend.

"How do you know this?"

"Because I was connected with him... and his shout ceased a moment ago. I'm feeling an echo of the presence of this strange being... and the city." Hotaru leaned against the fence.

"I feel the electricity swimming in wires above Tokyo streets as if they were a part of my nervous system." Saturn raised the hand.

"And continuous hubbub of million of telecommunications devices... but these voices are quiter and quieter..." She added.

"Are you sure that everything is all right? I don't want you to..." Setsuna was afraid to finish.

"I'll be fine. The contact was too short. But now he knows who I am and what power I have. He wants to change this world to the one he remembers from his home place. He is afraid and he is suffering and he wants finally to experience the peace. And he wants me to use Silence Glaive on the entire planet." Hotaru sat down on the pavement.

"Are you sure that you don't need help?"

"I will cope myself... I will be better when I don't feel the entire dirt of our city on the skin... and dark secrets of the ones who we pass on the street every day." Hotaru covered her face with hands.

In another dimension, Michiru was floating inertly above the surface of the strange land, while colourful light patterns whirled around her, every couple of minutes touching her and disappearing inside her body then turning up at other places. At some point colour lights disappeared and fractals moved away to such a distance, that they seemed to be distant heavenly bodies orbiting around the strange planet. Michiru fell down on her knees. Haruka immediately ran up to her. She noticed that a flood of tears had flowed down the face of the friend, and her body experienced convulsions.

"Michiru! What is happening?!" The blonde hugged her lover.

"Have you done it? Have you established contact with him?" She asked, when green haired woman touched her.

"Yes... I did it... I saw the world the way he sees it... I'm so sad..." Michiru spoke quietly. She could not stop crying.

"What did you see? What kind of being it is? Where did he come from?"

"I must... I must start thinking as the normal human again... my senses... are slowly regaining balance..." The girl said, cuddling up to the blonde.

"Be calm. I'm here. I'm by you all the time. Touch me, listen to my voice... use all your senses on me if you must. Treat me as the signpost in the return to the normal world."

Michiru nodded her head signalling that she had understood what her companion had said. She closed her eyes trying to restore a normal train of thought in her mind.

Meanwhile, on the Earth, Hotaru felt much better and presented her plan for establishing a contact with the Being to Setsuna. Girls had to be very careful so that the alien being hiding in every aspect of the city in which they lived, doesn't discover their intention. Sailor Saturn created a barrier around herself and the friend using Silent Wall spell, and Sailor Pluto additionally built the dome of space-time distortions.

"Do you want to expose yourself as the bait? You cannot! It's too dangerous for you and for the entire world. You saw what happened with this man!"

"I saw all. And therefore I'm the only person who can fight with this thing. He wants to get to know me better, because he senses in me a power thanks to which he will be able to remove everything that is unbearable to him. He wants to destroy contradictions which he meets all the time in our world, because he doesn't understand them and this ignorance is wounding him... it is inflicting physical pain on him. He craves for the power of Saturn, the power equating everything to one level. My mind is difficult to take control, because there are two awarenesses in it. It can give me a chance, and time for you essential to open the gate which will take us to Haruka and Michiru. I'll try... to invite him to my thoughts. I'll try to meet him somewhere amongst lamplights, the street noise and long underground corridors."

"Good. I'll be observing you all the time. But you cannot provoke him as Sailor Senshi. If he overcames you..."

"I know." Hotaru smiled. Her body lighted in a purple colour, and later her uniform changed into everyday clothes.

"I'm going." She added, heading for the city's center.

In another dimension, Michiru rested after a direct contact with the strange intelligence and could already freely talk to the friend. She could also collect her thoughts and memories concerning the connection. The rational part of the girl's mind was working correctly, but her feeling still remained apart from her control. She cried.

"You're safe. You managed to break the connection... I told you not to do it. Who knows what he did to you..." Haruka was worried about her beloved.

"No... I'm OK, really. I cannot simply cope with sadness which now is flooding me... his sadness... our guest from the other world."

"Sadness?"

"Yes. He didn't come here of his free will. He was drawn by the magic of the tower when I... the witch controlling my body tore barriers of time and space. He came into the world completely alien to him... into the world which doesn't have any sense to him."

"What do you mean?"

"He is afraid of everything that surrounds him, because it's alien to him. He is afraid of linearity of our time, the division into the past, the present time and the future. He is horrified that it isn't possible to move freely along the arrow of time in two directions. He is afraid that in our world matter has its determined place, instead of being stretch out from one end of world to another in the form of waves... He is imprisoned in now and objects building our city. He feels like an animal which fell into a trap and cannot get out without killing itself. And he is afraid of us the most..."

"Of us?"

"Us, people. We're something incomprehensible for him. We as conscious beings, able to think and to feel and at the same time separated from each other, not able to connect, to change experiences, unities but lonely, not a part of the whole. The world seems to him something chaotic, a mixture creating only threats of contradictions."

"Can we... free him?"

"I don't know... he is connected with our city... when I united with him I saw him in the past of Tokyo... almost from its formation. Our guest tries to understand our minds. Therefore he is looking for people with an unusual look at the world, lookng ahead farther than average residents."

"And because of that he found this architect?"

"Yes. He found me also, the author of music and paintings. But even in our heads he could see only a chaotic stream of consciousness, not similar to what he used to know. I'm afraid what the longer connection can do with the mind of ordinary person."

"Do you feel bad?"

"No. I interfaced with him too briefly. But if somebody could see the world thorugh his "eyes" longer... I don't know, whether he can come back to the normal perception. But we should be afraid of something else."

"Yes?"

"Hotaru."

"What?"

"He made contact with Hotaru. He discovered who she was and what power she had. Or he actually discovered what power Sailor Saturn had. In her weapon, he sees a possibility of calming the chaos which surrounds him, explaining all contradictions and hushing up thousands of mutually exclusive thoughts and voices. He wants to find Hotaru and to force her to use Silence Glaive on the entire planet."

"Damn it, we must stop him somehow."

"We cannot struggle with something that isn't subject to laws of physics of this world and isn't material. We must help Hotaru to remain herself, when he finds her and gets her here. And hope to goodness that Hotaru is able to explain him how our world works."

Hotaru walked on streets of Tokyo in hope of making a contact with the strange intelligence. She tried to ignore all stimuli reaching her from the outside world, to suppress tens of images and sounds taking her attention away from the goal. The girl stopped in various places, when she intuitively sensed someone's presence trying to reach her mind. She forced her way through loud crowds of people using the night life, ignoring the look of drunk men leaving bars. She stopped, looked up, and a colourful light of neon sing reflected in her purple eyes. The girl stood on the dark bridge leading to the temple surrounded by trees, listening intently to silence, the swoosh of the wind and the rustle of water flowing below. She got to the roof of a shopping centre, where a cold wind blew her hair. She looked at blinking lights on the Tokyo Tower in the distance and hundreds of streets of the vast metropolis. Every one of them could be a road leading to the new opponent and the place in which Haruka and Michiru were imprisoned. Streams of people, cars, music, passing trains, and a distant roar of planes flying somewhere high kept her company during the walk. There was no track of the internal voice wanting to use her power to repair the chaotic world. After long hours of wandering in night-time Tokyo, the girl decided to come back to the place in which she felt the presence of the strange intelligence for the first time, to her own home. When she was walking in a familiar district, bathed in the light of street lamps and the shining advertisement on one of groceries, racing thoughts appeared in her mind, similiar with the ones which happened to her when she touched Hiroshi. Hotaru knew that she did it. The strange alien tried to establish a contact with her again.

"I agree. Let us unite." The black-haired girl thought, when fractal patterns and colours had appeared in front of her eyes. Sailor Pluto, observing the friend from a distance noticed her stop and her strange behaviour. Hotaru felt that her body was paralysed by an unknown power, and everything around her became white. The girl was sure that Glave of Silence was summoned, but not at her direct order. Warm white bathed her body, she couldn't even see her legs. Setsuna came running to help her when Hotaru disappeared in space-time turbulence which was made around her in the middle of the street. She used the talisman in order to stop shutting up hole in the matter of reality long enough so she could also to get to the other dimension. The woman was a witness of the appearance of a light flower, precisely in the same place in which Hotaru stood a minute ago. The flower bent over, simultaneously crystallizing and changing into a neon light, exactly the same as two previous ones which woman-warriors came across. Sailor Pluto she stopped its full formation and entered the space-time corridor.

Hotaru appeared in the middle of the boundless space. When she opened her eyes, she noticed, that she was under the sky full of colourful fractal patterns. After a moment, she realized that she had changed against her will in Sailor Saturn. She was carrying Silence Glaive, full of the energy able to destroy the entire planet. Sailor Pluto came also into the other reality, but in a different place. She was lonely in the middle of the sterile wilderness. Hotaru looked all around preparing to the meeting with the strange intelligence, and the black sky above her head started creating more and more colourful fractal patterns. When geometrical symbols gathered above the girl, her mind was attacked with a series of quickly changing images. Hotaru could see the city the same was as the stranger trying to establish contact with her. Her awareness was in many places simultaneously, in her house, in library of the university, in the underground and on the top of the Tokyo tower. She saw hundreds of people walking on the streets, she looked into their thoughts, being entirely disorientated with chaos inside them. At some point, all visions, points of view which she observed, melted into one image - her holding the weapon. She watched Sailor Saturn freeing lethal energy and hushing all thoughts of city dwellers up, replacing the chaos of the diversity with beautiful symmetry of the emptiness and silence embracing everything. She smiled and different personality living in her mind was closer to the surface of her consciousness.

"I understand his fear and desire for changes. I finally found the soulmate." Sailor Saturn said hiding Hotaru into the dark angle of her own thoughts. Suddenly, an apparition of her green haired friend appeared in front of the girl's violet eyes.

"Hotaru..."

"Michiru? Where are you?" Hotaru asked surprised.

"I don't know whether it is correctly asked question. Where and when has ne meaning in this place." Neptune answered.

"I made a contact with the strange being the same as you now and thanks to that we can exchange thoughts. Hotaru, I can't talk with it, because he stopped being interested in me after he united with you. You cannot let him take control over Sailor Saturn. He will use her power against our reality. Hotaru, try to affect his mind the way I did earlier, and you will know what I'm talking about."

The black-haired girl used her entire mental efford in order to force Sailor Saturn to return to the closed cell in darknesses of her subconsciousness and recovered the control over her own body.

And then she understood what Michiru tried to tell her. The stranger was afraid of everything that surrounded him, what was alien to him. He was afraid of the linearity of time, the division into the past, the present and the future. He was horrified that in the reality it wasn't possible to travel freely along the arrow of in both directions. He was afraid of matter having its determined place in the space. He was imprisoned in a temporality and atoms building Tokyo. He felt as an animal that fell into a trap and could not get out. But he was afraid of people the most, aware being able to think and feel and at the same time separated from each other, not able to link, to exchange experiences, unities not being a part of the whole. The world was something chaotic to him, a large mixture of threatening contradictions. Hotaru decided to try to talk him, to show him that there are immutable laws which are incorporated in the apparent chaos of the reality. The girl let him looki inside her mind and see everything she knew about the nature of the reality, everything that she learnt from books at university and from her visits in the endless stream of information of the collective cosmic awareness, Akasha chronicle. This time it was she who was the source of the visions intended for the strange mind. From laws of quantum mechanics ruling matter on the most basic level to cosmological equations ruling the entire universe, from occurring processes in a single cell for to forces deciding on the fate of the entire nations on the globe, the being got to know meaning of everything at lightning pace. Information coming to its mind was far beyond the level intelligible to Hotaru, it concerned the structure of multiverse, events from before the beginning of time. At some point, the black-haired girl heard one thought in her head.

"I don't understand... but I will try..."

She smiled. After a moment, she was enveloped by a bright glitter. When the blinding light disappeared and girls could safely open their eyes, it turned out that they had left other dimension and were in Tokyo, in the middle of some urban park. Haruka and Michiru stood by each other stunned with the strange event. Setsuna looked around in search for indications of the alien's presence, and Hotaru looked like her mind was somewhere far away.

"Hotaru, what's going on?" Setsuna was alarmed with the condition of the friend. She recalled what had happened with architect Hiroshi, when the stranger decided to settle inside his mind.

"Is he here?" She asked.

"Yes. But he won't be interfering with our city anymore. He decided to try to understand how our mind and our society works. Therefore he sent his messenger to the Earth. somebody who was born with your help." Hotaru announced calmly.

"What messenger?" Haruka was surprised.

"With our help? What do you mean?" Michiru asked.

"She should appear right away." The black-haired girl replied. Soon, woman-warriors noticed someone's silhouette in the dark park. When the figure approached them, it turned out that it was a young girl with long, curly blonde hair and blue eyes. She was completely naked, but she was not embarrased with this fact. She smiled in a friendly way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Girl with golden, curly hair, who had been created by the being from other reality a few days ago, was sitting on the sofa in the flat belonging to Haruka, Michiru, Hotaru and Setsuna. She was surrounded by books brought by Hotaru from the university, thanks to which she got to know all secrets of the life on earth. Haruka and Michiru observed her from a second room.

"She is remarkable. Recently, she wasn't even able to correctly say a word in our language, and now she is reading about things that we barely comprehend with an ease." Michiru said.

"She is developing even faster than Hotaru after her second birth." Haruka added.

"Setsuna should come back with results of her examinations from the laboratory in a minute." The Blonde whispered trying to avoid eyes of the friend.

"I can see that you're afraid of whom she can be." Michiru knew very well what had worried the blonde.

"I know whom she is and know it too, because Hotaru is almost certain how Hikari was created. But I worry what will happen, if physical examinations confirm it."

Michiru cuddled up to the friend. She put her head on her shoulder.

"We'll cope with this. We'll be together as always and we'll deal with this. But probably we'll never truly believe that a miracle, of which we even didn't dare to dream, happened to us."

"The miracle happened to us the second time. Remember that Hotaru is also our daughter. We brought her up together..."

"I know, but this time we'll be connected through biology."

A moment later, Setsuna came back home, bringing also Hotaru. The black-haired girl smiled to friends.

"I'm going to Hikari." She said, entering the living room. Setsuna looked at Haruka and Michiru.

"Let us walk to the dining room." She suggested. When all three women sat down by the kitchen table, Setsuna put lab results of the mysterious girl on it.

"What we have guessed turned out to be true. Hikari has genetic code of both of you."

Haruka touched her beloved's hand.

"She is your daughter, or rather she is a clone made from your joint DNA sample with an addition of a few random mutations. Look at papers which I brought, if you don't believe me."

"We believe you. Reading these sheets will not do any good, because we don't know about this the things you know." The blonde answered, moving lab results back towards Setsuna.

"Our dreams come true, even if such an unusual way." She added hugging Michiru.

"Haruka... what will we do now?"

"Hikari will settle with us. We don't know who she really is and why she appeared between us to. We cannot trust her. We'll be observing her, until she reveals something more to us."

"Exactly. We cannot let her getting to know our city alone. Let us remember that the man who contacted with the being in which Hikari was born, took his own life." Setsuna announced.

"You treat her as if she was an opponent, but she is... our child..." Michiru said sadly.

"You cannot forget what our role is, Michiru. We promised to defend the planet against anomalies from the outer space, and she is an anomaly from the outer space. Apart from that something else worries me..." Haruka commented on the statement of the friend. She continued.

"If that strange being copied something more than our body and blood... What if Hikari... does have Sailor Senshi abilities?"

Michiru and Setsuna looked at each other. Their eyesight betrayed that they hadn't thought about the possibility suggested by the blonde.

"Not knowing the true nature of her creator, we can rule it out." Setsuna spoke.

"Hikari's appearance changed our plans. We cannot all look for fugitives from other realities. We cannot simultaneously travel all over world, perhaps fighting with powerful enemies and guard Hikari. We will have to split into groups."

"I don't like it." Haruka didn't hide a dissatisfaction.

"We don't have a choice. Hikari will... need us." Michiru once again has caused the impression to be the most bound emotionally with the new occupant of the shared Sailor Senshi's house.

"Hikari should stay in Japan with Hotaru. She spends a lot of time with her and I think that she trusts her the most. The being which created her also established contact with Hotaru and only thanks to her it stopped being interested in residents of our city." Setsuna said.

"You don't have to leave me behind. I'll travel with you." Hikari joined in the conversation, imperceptibly entering the kitchen. Hotaru turned up at the room a few seconds later.

"I'll help you find all fugitives and send them where they come from." She added.

"No! It's too dangerous! We don't know what or whom we will come across there! You live only a few days and you really saw nothing besides what was in Hotaru's books. You don't have enough experience to travel with us." Upset Haruka answered.

"The only one who is able to sense these beings is Setsuna, right? But she cannot be in two places simultaneously. Even if I have a human body for only a few days, actually I earlier lived the entire eternity as the part of Pleroma! And when the witch opened doors to other reality, I as a fragment which is the whole, travelled together with other beings through the corridor to your planet. Besides... I still don't understand myself in the new body, but I'm probably able also to send them to their houses."

"We'll send them nowhere. We'll defeat them." The blonde became nervous.

"Haruka, she is right. I cannot be in many places at the same time, and perhaps physical destroying strangers will be a too radical solution."

"I also think that Hikari is ready to go beyond walls of this house. She understands more than I." Hotaru joined in the conversation.

"Ok. I understand that she is ready to stand up to the world, but what if there is a real fight? We'll not be able to defeat the opponent simultaneously protecting her."

"You don't have to protect me. Your energy signature is simple and I can copy it." Hikari announced gladly. She closed her eyes and put her hand on her heart. Her body started shine in white glitter, her clothes disappeared from her body and a moment later they returned in a changed form, in the form of Sailor Senshi uniform. All girls were struck dumb with a surprise. Hikari skirt was of blue colour, the big bow was golden, and her boots looked like the ones worn by Sailor Saturn. She had a diadem with a golden jewel on the head.

"Do you like it?" The blonde asked smiling again.

"And don't worry. It isn't only clothes. I'm also able to fight, but you'll see it only when it's really necessary."

"Hotaru, can you show me these books on the Solar System again? I must invent some pseudonym for myself." Hikari looked at the black-haired girl.

"Of course." Saturn was confused.

"She horrifies me more and more with every moment." Haruka announced.

"I have never seen something similar. Nobody has ever copied the Sailor Senshi's ability. Even Galaxia wasn't able to create artificial woman-warriors so quickly."

Hotaru and Hikari came back to the living room.

"Hikari found Sailor Senshi's name for herself." The black-haired girl said.

"Sedna. Sailor Sedna. It fits very well. Sedna is a heavenly body on border of solar system which isn't a planet, but it's big enough, that probably it has its own moon. And in addition, Sedna was a goddess of oceans. I was born thanks to two of you... including the woman-warrior protected by the planet of the King of Oceans, Neptune."

"At the beginning she wanted to call herself after Eris planet, but together we reached a conclusion that it wouldn't be appropriate." Hotaru said gladly.

"Ok. Hikari will travel with us." Haruka looked at Michiru and at her new daughter.

"I don't like it. But we have another reason to keep Hikari close to us and to carefully observe her now." She whispered.

"Yes. And most important we'll be able to get to know her well." Michiru answered.

At late afternoon, all four Outer Senshi and their new friend gathered in the living room in order to share tasks of seeking fugitives from other worlds.

"Haruka, Michiru... and Hikari, you will be travelling together." Setsuna suggested.

"I and Hotaru will be the second group." She added.

"Where will we start our search?" Hotaru asked.

"I propose that every group searches places of the appearance of space-time anomalies on different continents. Hikari, will you be able to recognize area where a stranger can be hidden?"

"Yes. My awareness now is restricted, but if I am close enough to the place in which the anomaly appeared, I should somehow feel it."

"Well. I'll use Garnet Rod."

"Perhaps I'll also be able to locate them. I managed to establish contact with the first stranger." Hotaru spoke.

"Because he wanted to meet you and know you better. Therefore, even now I think that I know you the most." Hikari commented.

"Perhaps the mirror will help us." Michiru said looking at the mirror.

"And I will be best at chasing them away from our world." Haruka sumed up.

"But still we don't know, which group will go where." She added.

"Exactly. I and Hotaru start with Australia. Your three search Asian countries." Sestuna announced.

"Asia is large. Where specifically?"

"Places could change, but when I was recently by the space-time Gate I saw three locations: Mongolia, India and somewhere in the center part of Russia."

"Nice. Still not very specifically."

"I'll try again to look into the stream of the time by the Doorway before our journey. Perhaps I'll manage to efind places of opponents more precisely."

"Well. Now let us already start packing up, because we must set off as soon as possible." Haruka said standing up from the table.

Before the trip, Michiru could not fall asleep again. She woke up in the middle of the night with a need of going to her studio and complete the work on which she had worked for a few days. It was completely illogical, taking into consideration all other important matters which happened around her, but desire was more intense than the common sense. When the girl was on the second floor, she discovered in surprise that the door of her room had been opened slightly, and inside a light was on. Michiru quickly entered the studio. As it turned out, Hikari was in it. The blonde smiled seeing green haired woman.

"Good evening." She said.

"What are you doing here Hikari? How did you enter here? I locked this door."

"Really? I didn't know. I simply touched the door handle and the door opened." Hikari announced smiling again. Michiru noticed that her image which she intended to paint that night, was discovered. She clenched fists. Anger seized her however she quickly overcame it.

"Hikari! One isn't allowed to enter someone's room without a permission! You must remember it!" She shouted.

"I thought that it was a shared peace. Don't scream this way, or else you will wake everyone up." Hikari answered moving away from Michiru's painting. She looked at linen and became sad.

"It's so heavy and dark. It doesn't fit you. You seemed to me as completely different person, when I could touch your thoughts inside the Pleroma. Pitch-black tower, dark clouds heralding coming of the storm, dark forests hiding a lot of dangers. Does your soul look like this?" Hikari commented on the subject of Michiru's work.

"Hikari! Return to your room!"

"I'm sure that I've seen this place. When I got to this universe. When I was attracted there..." The blonde said looking at the linen.

"Hikari, why you aren't listening to me? What do you mean?"

"You're irritated and because of that you won't fall asleep until the morning. But after all you must be well rested before the journey. Go to bed Michiru... mum... rest and let stormy thoughts leave you at least for this one night." Hikari looked at Neptune with hypnotizing eyesight.

"I... you're right. I suddenly became terribly drowsy." The girl answered yawning. She left the room and closed the door behind herself, not paying heed that Hikari was inside.

"Your mind is fighting a battle... mum... but I will help you to come back to the light."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Michiru was walking along a narrow forest path. Trees surrounded her from everywhere, giving a cool shadow at sunny noon. Birds were singing among the trees and sounds of some difficult to identify forest animals were heard from a distance. The girl was in a hurry, she was walking ahead up hills, not stopping and not looking back. She knew that she had to reach her destination as soon as possible, although she didn't remember what the destination actually was. Air was becoming colder and colder, and path was becoming darker and darker. The vault of leaves and branches was thicker and thicker, as Michiru wandered deep into the forest and the clear sky became covered with dark clouds heralding coming of the rain. At some point, the girl was on a hilltop. She was in an open area, but there was even darker than inside the forest thicket. Black, storm clouds were travelling all over the sky. Michiru looked ahead and felt a panic attack paralysing her whole body. She was looking at one point not being able to make a footstep, not being able to speak, although she felt like screaming. The large, black tower which she remembered from her own paintings created in a few last nights, stood before her towering over everything.

Michiru woke up from the strange nightmare. Her heart was beating quickly and her whole body was sweaty. She looked around, trying to notice familiar shapes in the semi-darkness. After a moment, she remembered that she had been on a board of a plane and flew to Mongolia together with Haruka and Hikari. She closed her eyes and sighed, feeling embarrassed. She hoped that she hadn't said something through the dream which would attract the attention of her fellow passengers. The night time was aboard and the generality of people slept. Probably nobody noticed sudden waking up of the girl. She felt touch of the hand on the shoulder. She looked at Haruka who was still asleep, and then at Hikari. The girl fixed her big, blue eyes on her.

"You look terrified. What happened?" The blonde asked.

"Nothing important. It was only a dream." Michiru answered.

"I hope that I didn't wake you up." She added.

"No. In my new body, I need sleep, but I'm feeling it totally different than you and other people. Actually I'm learning how to dream... I'm roaming worlds of dreams of all these people and I'm creating my own world, in which I'll be able to rest at night."

"Were you also in my dreams?" Michiru asked.

"No. Because they were too intense. As if a great storm tormented them. I don't want my world of dreams to be as dangerous as yours."

"We can't choose a world of dreams for ourselves. Therefore nightmares haunt such as the one that I had today."

"Untrue. You also choose worlds into which you walk away during the night, although you don't realize this. But in your case it's likely that indeed you had no choice."

"What did you wanted to say?"

"I don't know. I'm still learning to understand you." Hikari answered enigmatically.

"And now I'll try to fall asleep and dream like others around us. Goodnight." The girl lay down on the armchair and closed her eyes.

A few hours later, Haruka, Michiru and Hikari talked about the new opponent with whom they were supposed to square up in the immediate future.

"Girls, we'll soon be on the spot. Can we guess what we'll be dealing with?" Haruka asked, actually expecting only Hikari's reply.

"My mirror is worthless at the moment." Michiru announced. Hikari took the map of Asia out of her rucksack.

"When you two slept I had a time to try to look for an anomaly, something that doesn't belong to this world, something that could appear here as a result of the emergence of a tunnel between dimensions. As it turned out, there is something like that. Look at this area. When I extended my mind over the entire Western Asian continent during a trance, there, exactly in that place I sensed an anomaly, small but very well noticeable." The girl explained.

"What is there? Gobi desert?" Haruka watched the map attentively.

"What can be in such a wilderness?"

"Mongolian Worm of the Death." Michiru interjected smiling.

"What?"

"Mongolian Worm of the Death, haven't you heard? Legendary animal resembling large, red earthworm, object of cryptozoologists' examinations. Supposedly it's dwelling in the dryest areas of the Gobi desert. It's dangerous, because according to witness statements, it attacks with an acid and paralyses victims from a distance with electric discharges." Michiru explained.

"Right. I too sometimes watch such things on television. But how this animal can be associated with our aliens, since it appeared many years ago?"

"Many years ago. The first mentions of it comes from early 20th century."

"In that case it's impossible that this worm is our opponent." Haruka summed up.

"Not necessarily." Hikari joined the conversation.

"What?"

"Beings which crossed the gate could appear on this planet in our times, but also weeks, years or even centuries ago. The gate linked not only various parts of the space, but also different moments of time." She explained.

"It only worsens our problem." Haruka added.

"How will we get to the Gobi desert and how will we cope there? We'll end up in the capital city of the country which we don't know, thousands of kilometers from this desert."

"I can teleport us there. The only problem is that I must know exactly the area in which I'm supposed to materialize us. When we are in the city, I'll visit minds of large number of people. At least some of them will know the geography of this place and the way to our target." Hikari shared her action plan with girls.

"We would go round in circles without you." Michiru said.

"You would rely on your friend, Sailor Pluto. She would transport you straight to the place where fugitives from other worlds are." Hikari replied.

Haruka, Michiru and Hikari landed safely in the capital city of Mongolia. When they came on the street in the front of the airport's main building, they decided to act according to the plan discussed during plane trip. Hikari left her luggage on the bench on which her two "mothers" sat down.

"Keep an eye on my things, okay? I'll go among people and draft the mental map of everything associated with the desert worm." She said and walked away before girls managed to answer her.

"Do you think that it's a good idea?" Haruka asked.

"We don't have any choice. My mirror won't find the aliens if they are thousands of kilometres from us."

"Yes I know, but is it sensible to arrive at the city in other country and bring a strange life form on its streets, the life form which we don't understand, we don't have a clue how powerful she really is and what are the limits of her abilities?"

"Haruka, you forgot to add that this strange being wants to look in thoughts of every residents of this city."

"Is it entertaining to you Michiru?"

"No, but I must admit that your behaviour is amusing me."

"What?"

"I've been observing you since the time when Hikari appeared. You're dissatisfied, suspicious of everything what she is doing, although Hikari so far tried to help us with everything. I'm under the impression that you're envious of her."

"I'm not. I simply..." Haruka fell into a pensive mood.

"I cannot trust somebody so different from us, so alien..." She said.

"I think that you cannot cope with the fact that she is so closely related to both of us. Who she actually is for both of us horifies you. Am I right?"

"Yes... and since we got to know Hikari, even before we learnt the truth about how she was created... from the beginning I have a feeling that something terrible will happen between three of us."

Michiru cuddled up to Haruka noticing that the girl became sad.

"We will be ok as always, we'll find a way... three of us." She whispered. At the same moment, Hikari came back from her walk across city streets and the mental walk inside minds of their residents.

"I am back!" She said sitting down between Haruka and Michiru." The blonde looked at her angrily.

"Did you find something?" Michiru asked.

"Yes, I learnt that hardly anyone of residents and tourists knew details about the Desert Worm of the Death."

"So we're back to square one. We don't have a clue how to find our alien." Haruka said dissatisfied with the news.

"I said that hardly anyone knows anything about the worm. But I was in a contact with a mind, which radiated with thoughts about this creature. I was in contact with somebody who saw it with his own eyes!"

"Really?" Michiru was glad.

"Yes! Come with me! He's nearby!" Hikari rose from the bench catching Michiru and Haruka's hands.

When girls took their luggage, the blonde moved towards the railway station located in the vicinity. After a few steps, girls reached a small street behind one of the biggest buildings in the area. As it turned out, there was a man looking like somebody homeless. Hikari looked at him, smiling.

"It's him. Our desert worm of the death lives in his thoughts." She said.

"Are you sure?" Haruka was surprised.

"Yes. We'll learn from him about everything." Hikari announced. The homeless person turned around. Seeing three women, he got up from the pavement.

"Beautiful ladies, will you help a man in a need?" He asked.

"How is it possible that I understand what he says?" Haruka was surprised again.

"It's also my fault." Hikari smiled and blinked at her. She came close to the stranger.

"We came to you, because you're the only person who can help us."

The tramp laughed.

"How can I help you?"

"You know where something what we're seeking is." Hikari said.

"I know nothing. If you don't want to help me then go away. You should not have fun of a poor man. " The man turned around in order to come back to the gloomy lane in which he usually slept.

"We're searching for the Worm of Death from the Gobi desert." Hikari announced firmly. The homeless person stopped. He turned away and a flash of happiness turned up in his eyes.

"Are you serious? Do you want to find this being?"

"Yes and we know that it really exists. You met it, right?"

The man was silent looking at three women keeping him company. He didn't know what to say. The close meeting with the worm from the Gobi desert became a cause of all his trouble and lead to the place in which he was. Nobody before wanted to believe that he was a witness of the desert monster's appearance. He was called a madman, and then he lost the job, the family and the roof above the head. And after many years three persons from other country appeared before him who not only believed in the story about the secret animal, but asked him for the help in tracking it down.

"Ok. I will make an exception for you. Come with me. Don't be afraid, we will go to a park where it's much more pleasantly than in this stinking hole." He said pointing at the direction at which in his belief the nearby municipal park was located.

After a moment of a walk, girls and their new acquaintance came into one of urban parks. The place wasn't crowded, and a few passers-by being in a hurry didn't keep an eye on three women and municipal tramp. The old man sat down on the bench and asked Hikari to come closer with a gesture.

"I'm looking in your eyes and I can see that you're a sincere person. You really believe me and you don't think I'm a madman. I hope that your friends think the same as you."

"They think the same as I, right?" Hikari turned to girls. Haruka didn't answer. Michiru nodded her head smiling.

"Ok. I'll tell you the biggest secret which I shared with nobody since I ended up on the street as a total nutcase. Girl, the worm which they show on the television... which Americans talk about... isn't the real grub from the desert. Indeed it lives there, but it's only a food for the real king of sands. The worm about which you read in books is a short bloodsucker, one and a half meters long! The real monster is meters high, it's large, it's traversing the desert like a whale in the ocean! I know this, because I saw it with my own eyes!" The man spread hands out demonstrating how large is the monster which he talked about.

"We want to see it. We want you to show us how to reach it." Hikari asked

"How could I do it? I'm too tired for long journeys."

"You'll be travelling nowhere. Just simply open your mind to me." The blonde said gladly. She came up to the man and touched his forehead. Haruka and Michiru observed her with an interest. After a moment, Hikari withdrew her hand and turned to friends.

"Now. I'm ready. I can take you straight to the place where this worm lives." She said. Tramp lay down on the bench and fell asleep.

"I gave him pleasant dreams which I caught in Tokyo." Hikari added looking at the man.

"I can teleport you there if you change into your Sailor Senshi forms, but a desert is a hot place, true?" She continued.

"Yes." Haruka answered.

"It's summer, so temperature indeed is large there. Apart from that the temperature can change over 30 degrees Celsius during twenty-four hours."

"And I saw in memories of this man that the worm lived in the hottest and dryest part of the desert. We must somehow protect ourselves, right Sailor Neptune?" Hikari turned to green haired woman.

"Perhaps we'll go to our hotel." Haruka offered.

A moment later, girls came inside a hotel room and turned into Sailor Senshi. Hikari also changed clothes to the uniform modeled on dresses of her two mothers.

"I will surround us with a very thin layer of water. I think that it should help us to survive in the greatest heat. Remember that this spell isn't very permanent and it's possible to easily disrupt it."

"Okay, we'll do our job and move out from this desert." Uranus said.

"What are we supposed to do?" She asked.

"Grab my hand and close your eyes. I'll tell you when the spell will end." Haruka touched Michiru's left hand. Hikari did the same with the girl's right hand. All three of them close eyes at the sign given by green haired woman. Neptune whispered quietly "Deep Submerge" and her whole body shone with an emerald glow which very quickly surrounded also Uranus and Sedna.

"We're ready." Michiru announced after several seconds.

"That's all? I don't feel that anything changed." Haruka was surprised.

"I said that it was a very thin layer of water. But it will be enough for us in a short time. Hikari?"

"I'm ready. Prepare for the teleportation. Protect eyes, because the desert can blind you." Sailor Sedna raised both hands above the head and teleported with her friends in a brillant flash of light.

Sailor Senshi appeared in the middle of the desert. There were sand dunes all around them. The Sun shone high above the horizon and there was extremely hot in the entire neighbourhood. Girls felt the heat radiating from sand covered them, even through the protective layer with which Sailor Neptune surrounded them. Hikari smiled.

"I can hear his mind. Mighty mind." She said and ran up the peak of the closest sand dune. She raised hands up to the sky, opened her mouth and strange sounds got out of her throat. Her heavenly melody was heard all around.

"What is she doing?" Haruka was surprised.

"She is trying to communicate with the desert worm. She is calling it here." Michiru answered. In the same moment, the desert started shaking under her legs. The resident of sands heard Sailor Senda's call. After a moment, the surface of the sand dune was torn apart by a black, huge shape appearing from its inside. The avalanche of sand fell on girls. The large, black desert grub stuck out of the desert. It looked like an outgrown earthworm, and rows of teeth was hidden inside his mouth orifice. The animal didn't have eyes, but in spite of it, it turned its head in the direction of woman-warriors. Hikari turned to Michiru and Haruka. A smile appeared on her face.

"I should prepare the sword." Sailor Uranus announced.

"There is something beautiful in it." Sailor Neptune commented. The desert worm made a low, bubbling sound. Sailor Sedna looked at its direction. She was alarmed.

"What's going on?" She asked.

"We aren't a threat for you!" She added. The worm came out of sand higher and placed its mouth exactly above the girl. It hissed furiously. Electrical discharge appeared around its face.

"What are you doing!" Hikari tried to communicate with it. Unfortunately it was already too late. The worm launched a ball of the electric energy at the woman-warrior. Hikari was struck, but she managed to shield Haruka and Michiru with her own body. The girl, thrown by a force of the monster's attack, fell down close to her friends.

"Hikari!" Neptune shouted.

"I knew that it would end like this." Uranus took the Cosmic Sword out and prepared for the attack of the worm. It moved up from sand even higher. It was looking majestically and towered over much shorter women.

"It'll be hard." Haruka commented. The worm attacked. In the same moment, a sound of shots sounded. Bullets hit the body of the grub, surrounding the monster with a cloud of smoke. The substance which was sprayed around it, was very irritant ti its skin, since it forced it to move back and to return to the underground tunnel, lying deep under the desert. Sand was shaking indicating that the wild beast could come back at any time and devour all Sailor Senshi before they would manage to react. Air above sands waved and brown, anti-gravity aircraft appeared in the place where nothing interesting was visible a second before. The hatch in the front part of its armour opened and a mysterious man got out from the inside. He was tall, dressed in a brown coat, leather trousers and high shoes. He had gloves on hands, and a black hat on the head. The face of the man was covered with a golden gas mask with the inflow air pipe coming from the cylinder on his back. Locks of grey hair stuck out from under his hat.

"Who are you?" Uranus asked gripping the Cosmic Sword. Neptune kneeled at unconscious Hikari.

"I saved your life. Now I propose you the transport to the safe place." The man announced pointing at his vehicle. Haruka looked at Michiru and at the stranger.

"Ok." She said. The mysterious man came up to Hikari, picked her up and headed for his flying machine. Uranus and Neptune went after him in spite of a doubt for his real intentions. Haruka didn't hide the sword and was ready for the possible confrontation. Sailor Senshi came inside the vehicle of the stranger, and the hatch closed itself behind their back. The storage space of the machine was spacious. Footsteps of girls reflected from walls of the room came back in a form of the echo. Other sounds were also heard inside, coming from deep inside of the machine, bringing noise resembling a distant industrial factory. The man didn't turn back, neither he didn't slow down, instead he came to the nearest door which opened before him and let him go to some other room. Haruka and Michiru were surprised very much, when they saw a corridor running deep into the building which was looking like a little flying vehicle from the outside.

"Haven't you been inside a tesseract before? Inside it's much bigger than on the outside. It's possible thanks to compressing of extra dimensions inside it." The grey haired man explained coming up to the door.

"Where are you carrying her?" Michiru asked.

"To the clinic. She was shocked with an electric energy and may require help." The man answered. He touched the panel standing by the door and when the door opened, he entered into the room. Air was colder there than in the corridor, and the lights gave an unpleasant, deathly pale colour to the walls. There were many various medical devices, majority of which didn't work and were covered with shrouds of transparent materials. Apparati which were connected to the power supply flashed with colorful lights. The man put Hikari on one of beds and tapped the sequence of keys out on the control panel standing by it.

"What's going on?" Haruka asked looking at beams of lights soaring from apparatus and focusing on the head of the unconscious blonde. The stranger took the hat and the mask off. It turned out that he had a face not marked with a lot of wrinkles, but his eyes were eyes of an old man.

"Who are you? What did you look for here?" Haruka asked.

"So many questions, after I saved your life? You should be brought up better. But okay, I don't want to have secrets with you. My name is Mortimer Theobald. I am a hunter and a collector of strange creatures of the Nature. And paying heed to circumstances of our meeting, I think that you are able to deduce what my purpose was. And you? You are not looking ordinary tourists lost in the desert."

"No. We hunt the same life form that you do. We're guardians who are protect the planet from the possible invasions from other worlds."

"And did you think that the desert worm came from other world? It is interesting." The grey haired man answered calmly.

"It isn't so? I think you're looking for it because of that. Am I right?" Haruka asked.

"No. Nevertheless it's intriguing to me, as something unique on the world scale or even more."

"What's with Hikari? What are you doing to her?" Michiru wanted to know more about treatment of her new daughter.

"My equipment is scanning her organism, seeking damage and after choosing the best procedure it will proceed to repair all problems. Perhaps you should take a walk into the living room and rest by a glass of tea, when your friend is regaining her health?"

"Yes, we won't leave this ship... until Hikari will be able to walk on her own."

"Good. So you are mine guests. Wait outside, I will soon show you the way. I only must look at results of your friend's scans." Mortimer reached the console and attentively fixed his eyes on symbols appearing on it. After a moment his eyes widened from an amazement. He smiled. He left the laboratory and asked Haruka and Michiru to go to some other door. Girls were surprised, when there came to the next room and no living room and tea which had been mentioned was present. There was nothing in the room apart from dark walls. Mortimer pressed buttons on his glove. Uranus and Neptune didn't even manage to react, when forcet fields in the form of spheres surrounded their bodies entirely. Girls yelled but the barrier let no sounds outside. The grey haired man touched the panel on the wall and at the same moment a hatch opened in the floor. Energy balls holding Sailor Senshi prisoner went up into air and fell out outside, straight into heated up desert sands. Mortimer smiled.

"I found something much more precious than the desert worm in this world." He said.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Hikari woke up in the room plunged in the semi-darkness. She felt bad, her head hurt and her skin ached in many places on the body. The girl sat down on the bed and looked at her hands. She smiled. Experiencing pain was unpleasant, but new experience for her. It was her next step to understand the being whose form she took, separating herself from the alien lifeform, her previous existence. After a moment, the girl stopped being interested in biological reactions of her bodily coating and her attention turned towards the outside world. Hikari noticed that she had been in a room full of machines monitoring her condition. Memories of last hours started flowing into her mind. She remembered the desert worm and the mission of sending it to its native realm. The last minutes of the meeting with the monster were still a chaotic mixture of images in which she could not find a meaning or a cause and effect sequence of events. She put legs on the floor and tried to get up.

"You should rest for a moment. After the attack by this monster your nerves and muscles aren't functioning properly. Give them a time for the repair." Hikari heard a man's voice.

"Who are you?" She asked noticing the long-haired man.

"Where am I?" She added.

"You are safe. My technology saved your life and soon will restore your health. You should not start a fight against the opponent which you know nothing about." Mortimer got up from the chair and approached the bed.

"I don't remember any details from the fight. I don't remember why I fought with this monster and how I ended up here. I'm confused..." Hikari explained her state.

"I understand how you feel. At one time I also became a victim of this kind of beast. I promise that you will also recover your memories."

"I hope... I remember my name and who I am, but I don't know how I got here. I don't know who you are. Have we met before?"

"I should start by introducing myself. I am Mortimer Theobald. I am a traveller and a collector. We are in the sickbay of my ship, actually inside tessaract, the heart of my ship. I found you hurt by the sand monstrosity which I wanted to take to my collection. I had to resign because helping you was more important."

"Thank you." Hikari answered again trying to get up.

"I can see that you do not want to sit."

"I just feel much better and I want to walk." The girl smiled. She looked at her clothes. She remembered that before the meeting with the monster she was wearing different dress on, the costume reminding her about somebody who she should know. The further attempt to seek memories caused that her head had started aching her again, so she resigned.

"Let me show you my ship and my large collection." Mortimer suggested. Hikari looked at him mysteriously. After a moment, they both entered the dark corridor. The grey-haired man approached the double door with golden door handles, opened it and asked the girl to come in. The chamber was bathed in the same darkness as the corridor, but when Hikari came inside, lights turned on in a few places simultaneously. As it turned out, the room was a gallery in which Mortimer gathered objects found during his numerous journeys.

"They are my treasures. Artifacts from all of the multiverse." The man said showing collected souvenirs. The blonde girl looked at the goblet in which sparks of the fire burning between dimensions, linking past and future events with the present time smouldered. She watched perfectly geometric solids floating in fragments of eternal silence, chains piercing the space and visible with a naked eye, but having their hooks far out of mortal view, chains able to imprison gods. When the man showed the exit from the cabinet of curiosities, the girl looked fleetingly at drooping sunflowers standing in the vase, singing a pitiful song of the slave of aliens from other galaxy. Mortimer and Hikari entered the next room. It was a long corridor, as dark as previous rooms. There were glass cell walls, lighted by blue lamps hanging on the ceiling, behind which living specimens from the collection of the man were held. When Theobald stopped before one of them, additional lamps which lighted the inside turned on.

"Here is my zoo. I am holding here specimens coming from different worlds."

Hikari looked at the environment behind the pane, looking like a desert with red sand and dark rocks sticking out of it. Between sand dunes, there was a creature in a shape of a ball, with one green eye and mouth full of teeth, opened in a wry smile. Two pairs of horns were above its face.

"It is Cacodemon. I got him visiting artificial world built by the survivor from destroyed reality. Thousands of such creatures are inhabiting his land. Gathered in herds, they are traversing the never-ending desert letting nobody get to the palace of the survivor." When Mortimer finished his monologue, Cacodemon turned towards the pane noticing the company. It wasn't pleased with the presence of people. It opened its jaws, throwing with fireball towards Hikari. The barrier effectively protected the girl from flames.

"Let us go further. It is irritated and can be dangerous." The man switched the light off leaving the demon in peace.

"As everyone who is imprisoned against his will." Hikari announced. Mortimer showed her the next specimen from his collection. In the next cell, there was a fragment of forest in a darkness of night. Initially, Hikari could not see anything unusual, but she noticed the resident very quickly. There was a strange creature resembling a man moving on four limbs. It was dressed in shreds of green uniform, and a gas mask was stuck on its head, the one with a hanging pipe, looking like a trunk of the elephant. The monster noticed the girl looking at it through the pane, approached her and looked at her, making plans of his next move.

"These monsters were people until an object from the outer space fell on the area of their state, an object with technology of the strange civilization. That rock changed area within a radius of many kilometres, entirely changing residents, the ecosystem and even laws of physics. The one which is watching you was a serviceman sent to the zone to check what happened after the fall of the meteorite. The freed energy from the epicentre changed him and his friends into animals steered by an instinct in a place of the mind."

"Interesting."

"Yes... what was the real nature of the meteorite? Did it fall there by chance, or was it intentional experiment of somebody from the other world? What will happen in the future? Will the area of its influence spread, what other changes will it bring, did all anomalies which appeared there, occurred in a completely random way or were there a part of a process which will bring result unknown to us now? Interesting questions, I'm sure I will examine that reality that in the future and found the answers to at least some of them." Mortimer said. He led the girl to the next chamber. Behind the pane, one could see a vacancy. Hikari was surprised.

"What is here? Invisible beast?" She asked.

"No. Stay here for a moment and fix your eyes on the same place. You will see something beautiful." The girl did exactly what the man had asked her to do. At first, she wasn't able to notice anything apart from the dark emptiness of the room, but soon her eyes glimpsed something more. Contours of shapes appeared, changing their length and curvature, appearing and disappearing in various places, joining with each other, and dividing into smaller parts a moment later. After a while, colours appeared between lines. The dark room filled up with a mixture of multicoloured shapes. Hikari observed creatures in astonishment, dancing in front of her eyes, seemingly chaotic, accidental, unrelated to each other, pulsing in an established rhythm, like one large organism full of complicated relations.

"These life forms exist on border between worlds. Their dance is the most complicated tongue in entire multiverse. Every colour, shape, rhythm has thousands of meanings and can describe things about which we have not a slightest idea. It is a form of intercommunication based on visual impressions. It looks like this to us. They can understand each other the way we are receiving our speech. We will never understand a mind of the another man, let alone a mind belonging to something like them."

"The form of the tongue means the intelligence, more developed than human. Is it all right to hold these being in a cage?"

"You think that if they did not want to be here, they wouldn't find an escape route? I am holding them in my collection, but it probably looks from their world that I am in the cage and they conduct their observation on me."

"A cage is always a cage. I saw too few thing to assess what is really happening here. But thanks to our trip I am starting reminding myself who I am. For example, I learnt that I didn't like any restriction of freedom and I know that I would find a way to get out of such a cell, if I was in one. And I will get out."

"You are my guest, not my prisoner. Have I tried to lock you up in one of my cells?"

"No. But isn't the entire tesseract a cage for me?"

"I repeat that you are my guest. You are in my protection. Nothing bad can happen to you here." Mortimer moved in the direction of the next cage. Lights went on in its interior showing an amorphous object afloat in the very center of the room. There was a strange creature in a shape of a huge drop of liquid stimulated to multimodal vibrations. Hikari and Mortimer's faces were mirrored in its silver surface.

"It is a fluid being living in hypertime dimension. Its every particle contains future and past events, it exists at any time simultaneously. Drinking drops of its body we can see what will happen in the future."

"It exists outside the time, but it is here and now. How is such a paradox possible?"

"Its cell is holding it in our temporal line." Mortimer announced. Hikari became pale. She clenched fists.

"Do you realize how cruel you are? How could you force such a being to feel linearity of time!? What would you do if somebody deprived you of all abilities to make moves? How will you feel?" A golden glow appeared around the girl.

"Why do you care so much about this being?" Mortimer was surprised, but realized that the girl had reminded herself her real nature. Hikari calmed down.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why I reacted like this. Let us go out. I don't want to be in this place, because it is so sad."

"Of course. The walk was supposed to help you regain the full fitness and all memories. It didn't fulfil its therapeutic role and it is necessary to stop it. Let us walk to my study." The man walked to the wall and pressed the green button. At the same moment, a big wooden door appeared.

"I remembered that behind this wall there was a cell. Do you want to lead me there?" The girl asked.

"Of course not!. My technology lets me control the space inside tesseract. I bent it so we can approach to my study faster." The grey-haired man announced calmly.

"You will see." He added. He turned a handle in the door and entered the room bathed in the darkness lightened up only with a blue light of the gilded lamp standing on the desk.

The man pointed at the couch and asked the blonde to sit down on it. He came up to the window behind which a light streak looking like the Milky Way was turning around.

"When I started collecting my artifacts many years ago, an egotistical will of having unusual and unique things was my only motivation. I got the technology giving me the possibility of travelling between dimensions and the pocket space obeying my orders. I travelled across strangest lands in search for worthless objects. I live like this until the moment, when I came across the strangest being in some old inn at the end of reality. The wanderer turned out to be a letter from the Divine alphabet incarnated in a human flesh, the variable from the equation ruling all the multiverse. One look into his eyes, in which galaxies whirled, caused that I had experienced the truth about the entire reality for a fraction of a second. One word said by him contained replies to all questions. For a fraction of a second, I understood everything that surrounded me... and later... a blink of an eye later... he dissolved into thin air, and I stayed with the emptiness in the mind, impossible to fill with any thoughts. Since then my life became a continuous search with a desire to have the ideal which I experienced then, for a fraction of a second of a contact with that unusual being. The search lasting years was fruitless... up to the moment, when I had a contact with you..." The man turned towards the sitting girl. His face was lighted by a blue glow.

"Or rather with what you were, when you crossed the space-time gate leading to this world. I touched your mind and I felt like then in the inn on the border of worlds. You were being existing outside border of physical space, experiencing the hypertime linking all past and future events of ordinary reality."

"I know that you are now not what you were then. You are only a droplet of that mind, limited in the human body. But a subset of the noncountable set has the same cardinality as the set. Now, when I found you... I will do everything to get your real power out of you and finally experience a peace." Mortimer returned to looking out of the window. His words caused that Hikari had remembered how she came inside tessaract.

"You are a stranger from the other world! The desert worm was only a bait. You used it to lure me here!" The girl rose from the couch and approached the man.

"Not necessarily. Perhaps it will also become a part of my zoo." Mortimer announced watching the blonde's eyes.

"Where are they... where are my friends?" Hikari asked.

"They are not necessary for me. They are not unique enough to find the place amongst my collection." Hikari's body started gleaming with a golden glitter. The girl tried to transform.

"Do not even try this. My computers monitor the energy given off by you and if you do something that can threaten me, they will turn security systems on. I am not going to lose you, after so many years of the search. If you want to get out from here you must kill me. And if it happens, the entire tesseract will be destroyed, and you will be imprisoned in a loop space, in a horrifying emptiness, all alone. You will feel like I felt during my search."

Hikari didn't attacked. She decided to learn about the opponent and about what happened to Haruka and Michiru. Her body stopped emitting the energy.

"Come with me." The grey haired man announced.

Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune were walking through heated up desert sands, being holding hands. Neptune's spell, providing them life-giving water was destroyed, when the collector of the curiosities got rid of girls. Haruka and Michiru didn't have protection against a heat and a dry air. The blonde tried to notice changes of the landscape on the horizon suggesting the border of the desert, but only boundlessness sea of the sand surrounded her.

"Damn it, I can no longer." She said clenching her fists.

"He knew where to drop us off. He aimed right at the middle of the desert. He wanted to kill us."

"And he took Hikari." Michiru added.

"If she wasn't there, we would settle this matter in our way and it would be over now. Why the hell she butted in." Haruka was irritated.

"Let us try to teleport." She suggested.

"Again? We already tried. It failed, because Mortimer used some spell on us. If we try one more time, we can run out of energy more and change back. And then we won't have any protection and increased endurance. We must go forward."

"I can see that you cannot. You look even worse than me."

"Try to go on the sand in such shoes. I could go barefooted." Michiru said sweeping hair aside from her sweaty forehead.

"Let us rest." Haruka suggested.

"How will it help us?" Michiru asked and sat down on the sand dune. A moment of peace for legs was needed.

"Our senshi form is the only thing that makes us go forward. If we had no uniforms, we would catch stroke, or we could faint from the dehydration. If we want to survive, we cannot allow the transformation to fade out."

"Do you know what is puzzling me? Where is this worm? We are in such a state, that we would be a simple snack for him." Haruka thought.

"Perhaps it isn't interested in the human meat? Perhaps Sailor Senshi aura protects us from its senses, who knows?" Michiru answered. After a moment, she carried the thought on.

"I think that the worm isn't a threat for us. And it's a local animal living in this place. Mortimer is our true enemy. He is a fugitive from the other reality."

"He is a bastard and will be punished, if only I can lay my hands on him. The worm is also dangerous. It attacked Hikari."

"Maybe it defend itself. Or its territory."

"Maybe." Haruka sat down by Michiru. The girl cuddled up to her.

"To die from a sunstroke in the middle of the desert. I never imagined my end to be like this." The emerald-haired girl swept hair aside and put her head on Haruka's shoulder.

"You won't die. We'll reach some oasis and regain forces for the teleportation. And later, we'll find tessaract of this nutcase and destroy it along with its owner. Michiru, maybe you can feel water from an oasis?"

"I don't know. I can try, but I never had a psychic contact with inland water as with the sea or the ocean." Neptune closed her eyes. The jewel on her diadem shone. Michiru looked at Haruka and sadly shook her head.

"Nothing. I'm sorry." She whispered. She looked straight ahead.

"We won't make it. Something is wrong with my eyes. Sand is ondulating..."

Haruka got scared. She was afraid that Michiru will lose the transformation and the desert will kill her. She looked all around, also seeing a strange behaviour of sand dunes. Surroundings started shivering. Uranus got up taking the Space Sword out.

"There is nothing wrong with your eyes!" She said.

"The worm here is!" She added.

"I won't end up in some monster's stomach!" Sailor Uranus prepared for the attack. She knew that the activation of the magic blade would cause that she will lose remains of kept power, but she had no choice. Being eaten by the worm wasn't a death she wished for herself.

"Space Sword..." She whispered words of the spell. In the same moment, Neptune she stopped her.

"Hold on!"

"What do you mean?! It will kill us!"

"It isn't attacking us. Look, it is standing in one place." The girl pointed at the body of the worm sticking out above heated up desert sands, covering the Sun's disc.

"It's hesitating what to do next, but we cannot! Turn away Michiru!"

"Haruka, I think that it wants to make something over to us. It stood up above us, as if it wanted... to protect us from the Sun?" Neptune announced noticing that she was standing in a shadow of the large monster staying motionless above the surface of sand. Neptune didn't listen to Uranus warnings and came closer to the grey skin of the monster.

"What are you doing?"

"I'll try to repeat what Hikari wanted to do, to make a contact with it."

"And you'll end up the same as Hikari. Turn away! I'll deal with this monster once and for all."

"No." Neptune made a little barrier around herself using the talisman. In the same time, the worm hid in the sand, but it came out again after a moment. It turned its face in one direction, as if it tried to show something in the distance.

"Will you explain me what is happening here?" Haruka asked surprised. She was ready to behead the monster. Michiru looked at her from behind the emerald, semitranslucent shield.

"It wants to lead us somewhere." She answered gladly. The desert grub hid out in sand. Then it appeared a few metres farther. It looked at the same direction again.

"Do you have enough strength to go?" The girl asked the friend.

"Follow him? It's crazy! Perhaps it'll lead us to its nest and feed his young with us."

"If it wanted to kill us, it would have. We are exhausted, and it certainly feels it. After all it is an animal. We can follow him and risk with being eaten or stay here and die wandering in a heat. I will risk." Neptune announced. She moved in the direction pointed by the worm. Uranus deactivated the Cosmic Sword and silently headed after her beloved. After a dozen minutes of a difficult march in a heat, girls spotted an oasis. Green trees surrounding a small lake covered all around with grass grew before them as a mirage. Haruka smiled, seeing how her friend sped up towards the small pond, a drop of the element thanks to which she could regain life force.

The large worm disapeared into in the sandy sea, for the last time turning its head towards woman-warriors. Neptune and Uranus came inside the oasis as quickly as their exhausted organisms let them. They sat down in the water, under trees growing by the edge.

"My intuition was correct." Emerald haired girl announced gladly.

"it saved us. It proved to be the intelligent life form." She added. Haruka bathed the face, splashed the head and the back.

"I wanted to cut its head with the sword." She said.

Sailor Senshi recovered and were ready to find Hikari and get her out of Mortimer's trap. Their talismans gleamed with a glitter of protective planets, when they prepared for the teleportation.

"I'm sure now. The desert worm wasn't our goal. It's a being from our planet. It isn't a stranger which we must send back." Neptune announced.

"The one who took us to the ship to help Hikari is alien." She added.

"And the one who threw out from ship's hull and left to the death in a desert heat." Haruka interrupted her.

"Yes, we must send him back." She added clenching her fist.

"And save Hikari."

"How do you know that we still can track him down? Perhaps he's already a long way from here. I think that he was interested only in Hikari and he got what he had wanted. Why would he wait for something else?"

"My mirror is somehow connected with Hikari. When I'm looking at its surface and thinking about Hikari, I feel that she is still somewhere nearby."

"Can you tell more precisely?"

"No. I'm simply sensing her presence. Perhaps it's a bond which was formed between us during her birth?"

"We have to trust your premonition again and teleport into the unknown. What bad can happen to us?"

"At the worst it's a trap and we'll materialize inside a rock."

"Michiru, let us not waste time." The blonde raised the sword above her head.

"Uranus Planet Power!

"Neptune Planet Power!" Michiru join her activating the talisman.

"Sailor Teleport!" The shouted together. Their energy dashed off in the direction shown by the mirror of emerald haired woman-warrior. Teleportational column came across invisible wall, the barrier separating physical space from the tessaract inside the ship. Girls materialised in front of the vehicle of the grey haired man and fell down into hot sand.

"Damn it! We are on the desert, again!" Michiru said getting up.

"At least we aren't inside a rock." Haruka added.

"My plan failed. He took care of everything, so we can't go after him."

"Maybe not. Look." The blonde girl pointed at the appearing black spaceship.

"We're going." She added.

Mortimer observed the appearance of woman-warriors from the moment, when defensive systems of the vehicle informed him about encountering an energy of unknown origin.

"You are tough." He said and pressed a green, glistening button on the control console. The button changed its colour to red, meaning danger. Monsters from interdimensional zoo materialised in front of vehicle. Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune stopped in front of the spaceship, since monsters released from cages by the grey haired man blocked their way. They were behind the barrier of force field, but they were going to become a threat to girls in a minute.

"What's that?" Haruka asked taking the Space Sword out.

"Reception committee." Michiru announced smiling.

"Will we say hello?" She added. In the same moment monsters were freed. Mortimer sat on the armchair before a large television set watching events happening in front of his vehicle. Hikari stood by him lighted by a blue lighting emanating from lamps hung on the wall.

"We will see how they will deal with the most dangerous beasts from my small zoo." The man said turning towards the girl.

"They'll defeat them. I'm sure." Hikari replied without a moment of thought.

The group sent against Haruka and Michiru consisted of eleven monsters. First of them looked like a huge sea anemone crawling on land with a thousand of green tentacles. The mouth of it, full of slimy tongoues, was located at the peak of its body which was looking like a trunk of a tree. Cacodemon, shown earlier to Hikari by Mortimer, was the second monster. It had a red body of spherical shape, one eye and a huge jaw with teeth. Beside it, the other monster stood, with a body compound of a pitch-black stone. It resembled a stocky man, but fragments forming his body incessantly changed the configuration, and the being could assume any shape. A large amoeba with a body built of half-transparent ectoplasm floated in the air. Through her translucent skin, one could see pulsing, red organs providing the energy essential to life for the monster. There was also in the group a large, two-headed vulture with black feathers, wore out by continuous fights and passing time. A unicorn with a fair, yellow hair was the sixth monster. The horn of the animal sparked with a magic lying dormant in him, and one could see escalating madness in its eyes. A disgusting, green toad sat on nearby rock. It was bigger than a horse and bat's wing grew on its back. There was also a large lizard. Its body had two heads, and one of them grew out of the rear, where the normal animal would have a tail. The monster hissed loudly and its both mouths made steam and fire. The strange monster looking like a stone waited near the being with a shape of a sea anemone. Its body was coated with ten of green eyes, looking at woman-warriors and blinking all in a unison. The most humanly looking was a being with a skin made from the bark of a tree. Woman-plant had covering with leaves and hair compound of flowers. A creature built from metallic geometrical soilds, whirling around each other was levitating above the group.

"What are you waiting for?! Are you afraid of us?!" Haruka provoked the group. In the same moment, the crazy horse with a magic horn on the head jumped out ahead of the row, pointing the head in the direction of girls. He neighed loudly soaring bullets of pure, magical energy in the direction of woman-warriors.

"Submarine Reflection!" Michiru used her talisman. A magica barrier appeared in front of her. Faces of girls was coloured with the emerald light of activated item. The spell of the crazy unicorn hit the barrier, was reflected from it and hit nearby rocks. The cloud of sand rose up into the air giving Sailor Senshi chance for a withdrawal. Unfortunately, not all monsters relied exclusively on the sense of sight, some of them didn't even have eyes. The large land sea anemone launched long arrows from inside his slimy tongues towards girls. Michiru used the barrier created by her mirror again, protecting herself and the friend. Uranus became angry.

"World Shaking!" She shouted casting a spell blindly so that it could hit any of monsters grouped together. The black stone creature was hit, it started bubbling and shaking like a jelly, and it broke down into three specimens. Unfortunatelym all of them were alive and ready for the fight.

"World Shaking!" Haruka attacked the second time. This time, the creature with a body of an amoeba took the hit. Its body of unusual physiology let it absorb the energy of the ball of golden light, not harming it, but providing it with a good food. The blonde wanted to attack the third time, but cacodemon overtook her, shooting a ball of fire, smoke and sulphur at her. Sailor Senshi dodged the attack, feeling a heat of flames spat out by the infernal monster. Haruka looked at silhouette of coming monsters through airborne dust and black smoke of cacodemon's flames. She touched the earth under her feet.

"What are you doing?" Neptune asked.

"I'll try to slow them down." Uranus replied, using her spell again. This time the energy freed by her didn't changed into the form of the golden ball, but struck land creating the real earthquake directly. Seismic waves dashed off in the direction of monsters, tearing the earth in sore points. The girl could not see effects of her magic, because the smoke still was covering all the surroundings, but shouts reaching her ears confirmed her that her attack was effective and inflicted severe wounds on the opponent. In the same moment Michiru shouted.

"Look out!" She quickly ran up to her and rested her back against hers. She looked upwards. The being with body compound of geometrical solids, whirling around each other, was approaching her with a huge speed.

"Deep Submerge!" She used spell, sending the magical blue ball towards the monster. The opponent was hit and submerged deep in the element controlled by Sailor Neptune, but it didn't make an impression on him. He penetrated the water barrier like an air, lowered its flight to achieve its goal faster. High sound made by its body irritated girls. Haruka took the Space Sword out. She stood up before Michiru and shielded her from whirling blades of the geometrical creature. Thanks to her weapon, she could defend against attacks which were becoming faster and more bold with each passing second. The being knew very well that Uranus' luck would end when she got tired of the constant fight.

" Haruka, there is more and more of them!" Michiru said looking at appearing monsters. Cacodemon geared up to spit to the fiery ball again. The crazy unicorn looked at the blonde with a hate.

"We must use the most powerful spells. Will you help me?" Uranus said defending herself against sharp triangles hitting her sword.

"Yes..." Michiru took the mirror out.

"Submarine Reflecation!" She pointed her talisman at the geometrical being and sent the stream of magic water in its direction. The monster was pushed back and thanks to that it was temporarily disorientated.

"We must isolate ourselves from them!" The blonde added.

"Neptune!" Michiru said, and a symbol of the planet Neptune shone on her head. Crystal clear water started forming around her hand. After a moment, liquid took on the shape of the violin. The girl touched them and completed the spell.

"Violin Tide!" She shouted. A column of swirling water appeared around her body. Steered by her mind, it widened to embrace Haruka, Michiru and the metallic monster in its interior, but to isolate all the rest of opponents.

"Now it's my turn!" Uranus prepared for the fight. She looked at the flying creature which was trying to examine the water barrier which suddenly appeared before it.

"Uranus! Space Turbulence!" The girl hit the earth with the sword creating a rift radiating inside with a red glow. She pointed the weapon at the opponent and a huge energy emerged from the crack on her mental order. The spell immediately reached its destination. The new Sailor Uranus' spell was as powerful as tens of spheres formed while casting the World Shaking spell. The geometrical creature felt huge stresses tearing its body, because tides of the cosmic turbulence went through the space which it occupied. It tried to resist, but Uranus was too strong. Geometrical shapes whirling around its body left their orbits and were destroyed. Soon, its body was torn apart by the energy and changed into rain of metallic grains. In the same time, Neptune freed a huge water funnel, pointing it directly at the rest of opponents.

Mortimer, observing the fight from a distance, got up from a chair not hiding the surprise.

"She killed a calculus, unique mechanical existence! I won't manage to visit their lands for the second time!" The man was furious.

"I told you not to understimate sailor senshi." Hikari replied calmly.

"Look what is happening now." She added. The grey-haired man looked at the screen on which the water hit the group of monsters, sinking them entirely.

"No! I won't lose more specimens!" He said pressing buttons on the steering console table. All monsters, drowning in the Michiru's water wall, were teleported to their cells.

"Perhaps there is a place for you on my ship." Mortimer said pressing other buttons on the desk. Hikari looked at him unemotionally, and a plan how to help her friends turned up at her head.

In the same time, Uranus and Neptune were observing unexpected withdrawal of opponents. When effects of Michiru's charm faded out in a hot, desert air, the space before girls waved, and a passage leading to the inside of the camouflaged Mortimer's ship appeared after a moment. The metallic hole invited into its interior with a pleasant coolness of the air-conditioned room, being an obvious trap at the same time.

"Are we going? He is waiting for us." Neptune asked.

"Of course. I count on it. I want to finally pay him back for leaving us behind on the desert." Uranus replied with a simle. Woman-warrior sentered the interior of the tesseract.


End file.
